Just a Theory
by Vehemently Yours
Summary: [DracoGinny] Professor McGonagall is taking psychology lessons through owl to earn her degree. For her final project, she has to prove a theory about love and hate to be true. Her two specimens? Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley...
1. I'd give up forever to touch you

**Title: **Just a Theory

**Author: **VehementlyYours

**Rating: **PG – PG-13

**Pairing:** Draco/Ginny

**Genre:** Humor/Romance

**Status:** On – going

**Summary: **Professor McGonagall has been taking psychology lessons through the Owl Post to earn her psychology degree, a long-time secret dream of hers. When she is sent a theory for her final class project, a large contributing factor to whether or not she earns her degree, how far will she go to prove its truth? Her theory? "The emotional distance between the deepest love and the deepest hate is the thickness of a piece of parchment and one mote of Viena pollen may tip the scale." Now all she needs is a pair of specimens to test her theory…

**Author's Note:** My newest Draco/Ginny fic. EDIT AUGUST 25, 2008: Hey everyone! I don't know how many of you have read my forum post, but I'll explain here what's taking the final chapter so long! I was pretty busy for one thing, and for another, I had the final chapter saved on my desktop computer. My desktop computer got a virus, so I put all my documents on my external harddrive and wiped my desktop harddrive. And guess what? My external hard drive got the virus too. Yes, I was quite happy too :P Anyway, I've had to re-write the entire chapter, trying to remember where it was heading and all. I'm still working on it, but it should be up soon!

On another note, looking back through these chapters, I realized that all my formatting has been screwed. So I'm going to go back through these chapters and re-format them so they're easier to read and such.

**Disclaimer: **I disclaim everything except the plot because that's mine.

* * *

**Just a Theory**

**Chapter 1**

Professor Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and head of Gryffindor house, all but ran to her window when she heard the familiar sound of an owl tapping on the glass windowpanes.

Throwing open the window, she let the owl fly into the room. Once the owl was perched on the chair in front of her desk, Minerva took the roll of parchment, unrolling it and skimming over it.

If she were anyone else but Professor Minerva McGonagall, she would have jumped and shouted for joy, but she was Professor McGonagall and she would never do such things. But she was very happy; the Owl she had received brought her last psychology lesson through the program, _'Psychology Made Easy Through Owl Post.' _If she did well on this last lesson, she would earn her psychology degree, something she had dreamed of ever since she was a child.

Mcgonagall skipped the introduction paragraph and went right to the assignment section.

_'The final class project will be one in which you shall have to apply all of your psychological evaluations, techniques, and mumbo-jum-err _skills_ in order to prove that a psychological theory is true. Each student is given a different theory to prove and yours is as follows: The emotional distance between the deepest love and the deepest hate is the thickness of a piece of parchment and one mote of Viena pollen may tip the scale. _

_Through many studies of the human mind by psychological professors worldwide, this theory has so far been proven true, though the professors are still looking for more proof before they deem it to always be true, which is what you shall be doing. You are to provide evidence, facts, etc. The psychological professors who created this theory are fervently hoping that this theory shall be proved true and that you shall be able to throw some light onto this theory, whether proving it true or false. _

_You will keep a psychological journal in which you record evidence, important quotes and events, and any psychological advances. You will send this journal to us at the end of every week where we shall read and evaluate your progress and the progress of your specimens. We will share this information with the professors where they will grade your preciseness, your efforts to prove this theory true, and the psychological techniques you will apply._

_This project will be due completed this date next month. This time next month, you will turn in your last journal and a written evaluation on the entire experiment._

_Good luck,_

_From the staff here at Psychology Made Easy Through Owl Post.' _

McGonagall frowned as she thought about the project. She knew this would be a difficult theory to prove. But before she attempted to prove it, she needed two specimens. Dinner had been over for half an hour so all of the students were either in their common rooms, in the library, or wandering the halls.

McGonagall smiled faintly as she left her room to patrol the halls for likely specimens.

* * *

Ginny Weasley yawned as she made her way down the hall with her pile of textbooks in her arms. She had just been doing homework in the library. It was a month into her sixth year at Hogwarts and she could already notice that this year's work level was far greater than her fifth year. The professors were preparing the sixth years for graduation the next year and gave the students more work than the students could possibly finish, but the professors expected them to finish it all anyway.

"Gods, any more and I won't be able to carry all my books," Ginny muttered as she attempted to see where she was going and precariously balance the tall stack of books in her arms at the same time.

Rounding the corner, she ran into someone and stumbled backwards, the books flying out of her arms as she inelegantly tripped over her feet in an effort to regain her balance, and hit the floor with a thud.

"Ow, ow, ow," Ginny whimpered, scrambling to her feet and rubbing her sore bottom.

"Why don't you little weasels ever watch where you're going?"

Ginny received a sinking feeling in her stomach as she realized that she recognized that lazy yet superior "I'm better than you" drawl. She glared up into the smirking face of Draco Malfoy.

Draco was actually glad that he had (literally) run into the little Weasley since it gave him something to do. He had been wandering the halls to find little first years or some Hufflepuffs to terrorize since he was so bored. But he had found the littlest (well, maybe not so little anymore) Weasley instead.

"Sod off, Malfoy, I'm in a hurry," she said, moving to pick up her books. Gathering them into a pile, she frowned as she realized that she was missing one. She growled slightly as she stood up and saw that Draco was holding the last book in the air.

When Ginny tried to reach up and grab it out of his hands, he sniggered and raised the book higher, just barely out of her reach if she jumped. He was a good few inches taller and so had the height advantage over her.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy! Give it here! I don't have time for any of your stupid games. Go play it on some of your cronies, they're stupid enough to be occupied for hours if you do this little trick of yours with them," Ginny said, reaching up for the book once again, only to have it pulled up out of her reach again.

"I don't know, you're nearing being occupied for hours with this little trick yourself," Draco said, smirking.

"Damn it, give it here!" Ginny cursed, stomping on his foot.

"Ow, shit Weasley! What a dirty little child's trick!" Draco said, wincing as he shifted his weight to the other foot.

Ginny grinned. "Still works just fine for me. And are you saying this"-she jumped up to grab her book but he pulled it away again-"isn't a child's trick? Seems pretty immature to me, Malfoy."

"I think all weasels should learn to fetch," Draco said, making to chuck the book down the hall.

"You wouldn't dare," Ginny said, her eyes narrowing. Even Draco Malfoy didn't toss around library books since Madam Pince would have anyone's head for ruining library books.

Draco shrugged. So maybe he wouldn't. Then he smirked. "Well let's just continue this then, shall we?" he asked, holding the book up in the air again.

"Damn it, just hand it over, _now_! Before-"

"Before what? Before you get really angry? Ooh, I'm so frightened!" Then he glanced down at the encyclopedia in his hands. "What do you have these for anyway? Oh, I see: you wanted to hold them. Wanted to know what it was like to hold such nice, expensive books, eh? Well here, I'll let you touch it," Draco said, sneering as he held the book lower.

Now Ginny's blood was boiling. "It's called _homework_, Malfoy. You use _books_ to do this _homework_ thing," she explained slowly, as if he were a child. He was acting enough like a child after all. Snatching the book, she kneed him-hard-in the place where no boy ever, _ever_ wants to be kneed. _'Nothing like the old "knee to the groin" trick,'_ Ginny thought to herself, grinning as she saw his obvious pain.

"Bloody hell!" Draco cursed breathlessly, doubling over in severe pain.

"Hopefully that-"

Neither Draco nor Ginny had noticed that they had an audience of one, watching them from a corner hidden in shadow. Here, the onlooker grinned triumphantly before applying her school-wide renowned severe, strict expression and stepping out of the shadows to stride towards them. She sharply interrupted Ginny.

"Mister Malfoy, Miss Weasley! This is not appropriate behavior in the halls or anywhere else for that matter!"

Ginny and Draco turned to see Professor McGonagall standing before them, her lips pressed into a thin line, her brow furrowed, and her arms crossed.

"Sorry, Professor," Ginny mumbled, though Draco said nothing as he was still bent over slightly.

"Mister Malfoy, detention for purposely provoking Miss Weasley and Miss Weasley: detention for…hurting Mister Malfoy. I'll see you both in my classroom after classes tomorrow.

"Yes, Professor," Ginny said, and-again-Draco said nothing and just scowled.

"The next time I see such a blatant display of disregard for school rules, I'll take house points away as well as issue detention," Professor McGonagall said, sternly looking at them over her spectacles.

Ginny nodded, glancing down at her feet sheepishly while Draco continued to scowl.

Giving the pair one more stern, disapproving look, Professor McGonagall swept off down the hall, black robes billowing out behind her. She waited until she had turned the corner to grin triumphantly. Nearby, some students' eyes widened in fear and uncertainty before they decided to scurry away for their own safety; none of them had ever seen Professor McGonagall grin like that and they were quite frightened. It couldn't be good if Professor McGonagall smiled like that.

_'I have my pair of specimens!'_

* * *

**Author's Note: **Ooooo! This is going to be fun! Fun fun…REVIEW!


	2. Cause I know that you feel me somehow

**Author's Note:** Haha, I'm listening to that Stacey's Mom song and it's really gross yet strangely funny at the same time. Haha…well anyway, I was pleased with the feedback I got for the first chapter. I'm glad you guys like this since I really like it as well . Anyway…does anyone ever read these author's notes things? I don't think anyone does, which is good because then no one will know about my bad habit of babbling pointlessly…

**Disclaimer:** I don't think anyone reads these things either…unless they're lawyers of course, in which case they'd be scanning the entire text like hawks for the disclaimer so that they can sue people if they're not on here. Do fanfiction writer's really ever get sued for not putting these stupid things on? O.o? I mean, if the fanfiction writer's aren't making money for it, geez…("Stacey can't you see, you're just not the girl for me. I know it might be wrong but I'm in love with Stacey's mom…") Wow…I babble so much it's not even funny. Well, it might be funny to some people yet irritating to others…And there I went again. -.-;;

* * *

**Just a Theory**

**Chapter 2**

Ginny and Draco didn't dare move (Well, Draco would have dared to move if he had wanted to move; he wasn't afraid of the Gryffindor head of house or anyone else for that matter) until Professor McGonagall was out of sight. And then Ginny turned to glare at Draco.

"This is all your fault," she hissed, kneeling and gathering her books together. "Sodding bastard."

"Aw, is the widdle weasel angry that she got detention?" Draco taunted, sneering.

"Hmph, well, unlike some people, I pride myself on never having stepped into a classroom for a detention…ever. Well, Snape's detentions hardly count since he issues detention for breathing the same air as him," Ginny said briskly, straightening and putting some of her books into her bag so she didn't have quite as large a pile of books to carry in her arms.

"Well this won't exactly be a picnic for me either, Weasley."

Ginny scowled up at him. "You have yourself to thank for this 'picnic.' I was minding my own bloody business until you showed u-"

"No, no, Weasley, _I_ was minding _my_ own 'bloody business' until you ran into me. And don't forget that you kneed me! Do you know how damn painful that is?" he asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and wincing slightly.

"As long as I had the chance to put you in agonizingly excruciating pain, I'll gladly serve that detention," Ginny sniffed, and then strode off down the hall, her books in her hands.

Draco was so angry he felt like hitting something. Unfortunately, the closest thing to him was the wall and he didn't fancy the idea of pounding on the stone wall. Next he searched for something to throw, but alas, there was nothing to throw either. So he decided to head back to his common room, where there were plenty of things to throw _and_ hit.

He stormed down the halls, sending several younger year students scurrying off down the hall or pressing themselves against the wall, fervently hoping that Draco would just pass them by, which he did.

When he marched into the Slytherin common room, Blaise Zabini, sitting at a wooden table near the fire, looked up from his homework and raised an eyebrow.

"Angry much?" he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching up in the slightest of smiles.

"None of your damn business!" Draco growled, throwing himself into one of the deep green wing-backed armchairs in front of the fire.

"I didn't say it was. It was more of a rhetorical question, meaning I wasn't expecting an answer anyway," Blaise commented lightly, picking up his quill and returning to his homework.

"She kneed me! She kneed me _and_ stomped on my bloody foot!" Draco suddenly blurted angrily after a moment of silence in which he had stared moodily into the fire.

Blaise smiled inwardly as he set down his quill and peered at the furious white-blond haired, gray-eyed Slytherin. The Slytherin seventh year sitting in front of him was a bit predictable now that Blaise had been sharing a dorm room with him for over six years. He had long since figured out that if he just sat there and pretended not to be interested, Draco would eventually tell him everything. No one except Blaise Zabini would ever use the words 'predictable' or 'readable' to describe Draco Malfoy, but to Blaise, he was entirely readable and predictable after six years. "Who?"

"None of your bloody business!" Draco snarled, crossing his arms and scowling into the fire. Blaise was strongly reminded of a sulking or pouting child.

Blaise shrugged and picked up his quill once again to return to his homework. He had only written the word 'the' when Draco shouted again.

"That Weasley bitch! She got me a damn detention. And she fucking kneed me and stomped on my foot!" Picking up Blaise's open Transfiguration textbook (the book Blaise was using to do his homework), Draco hurled it across the room where it hit the wall and landed with a dull thud, muffled by the deep green carpet.

Blaise sighed and set his quill down again. So much for finishing his work: he needed that book to do his homework. "Since I won't be able to finish my homework as you'll no doubt insist on chucking my quill and my ink bottle and probably a few more of my textbooks soon, I suppose I'll have to help you. Were you asking for it?"

"Ask-asking to be kneed in my-Hell no!" Draco spluttered at him in disbelief, looking at Blaise as if he were crazy. "Would any guy in his right mind, and any guy in his left mind for that matter, ask to be kneed there?!"

Blaise stared at him. "I think you missed my point. Even you have to admit that ninety percent of the time, give or take ten percent, you get only what you deserve."

"I didn't deserve it!"

"What'd you do?"

"Nothing!"

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Blaise asked, raising an eyebrow.

Draco shifted slightly. "I did take one of her books," he admitted.

"And what'd you do with it after you took it?"

"Held it away from her."

Blaise chuckled and shook his head, picking up his quill and twirled it between his fingers, watching it as his eyes danced in amusement.

"What's so funny?" Draco demanded angrily. He didn't appreciate being laughed at.

"Friend, if you were in elementary school or preschool or day care, you would be pulling her pigtails and hiding spiders in her desk," Blaise said simply.

"Are you suggesting that I was flirting with Weasley?" Draco asked, his eyes narrowing as if daring Blaise to say yes.

Blaise threw his hands up innocently, one hand still gripping the quill. "I'm just saying."

"You're mad. You're bloody stark raving mad," Draco said shortly, picking up Blaise's Potions book and hurling that at the wall as well. "You should know that that is not how I flirt with girls."

Blaise sighed as he watched the textbook hit the wall and land on top of the Transfiguration book. "I know how you flirt but Weasley's different than the girls you flirt with and that obviously calls for different tactics, am I correct?"

"No, you're not correct. Bloody stark raving mad is what you are."

Blaise gave a lopsided grin. "You're probably right." _'But I have good reason to be stark raving mad and I'm even getting extra credit for it,'_ Blaise thought smugly to himself. "And by the way, use your own textbooks when you want to throw things," Blaise said, standing to collect the two textbooks.

* * *

Professor McGonagall grinned as she strode down the hall, heading towards her Transfiguration class to oversee the detention of Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley. Now that she had the help of the one person who could even remotely be considered a friend to Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, this psychology project was hers. She had only had to offer the seventh year Slytherin extra credit in Transfiguration; his grades in that class were poor so he was jumping at the chance to gain extra credit.

Students in the halls were in shock to see Professor McGonagall grinning as she was. They shifted their weight and glanced around the halls nervously as if searching for an escape route.

_'I should start writing that paper now!' _she thought triumphantly, unaware of the nerves she caused to go haywire as she walked through the halls, a slight spring in her step.

* * *

Ginny Weasley entered the Transfiguration classroom for her detention five minutes early. Setting her bag down, she took a seat at a table and propped her chin up on her hands, her elbows on the table.

Classes were nothing unusual that day. The only thing that could have been considered unusual was that every time he saw her, Draco Malfoy scowled and glared furiously at her. Even that wasn't too unusual though since he scowled at everyone.

She heard the door open and Ginny turned her head to see Professor McGonagall entering the classroom, strict expression in place and her lips pressed into a firm line.

After a few minutes, Draco Malfoy nonchalantly strode into the room, smirking as he took a seat at a table as far as possible from Ginny. Seeing this, McGonagall frowned inwardly.

"You're late, Mister Malfoy," she said simply.

Draco's smirk grew as he nodded towards the clock. "Check the clock, _professor_. I'm a full thirty seconds early."

McGonagall's eyes narrowed and Ginny winced. Even Draco should know not to goad McGonagall.

"Miss Weasley, arrange these Transfiguration textbooks and Mister Malfoy here can clean the floor. After Miss Weasley's done arranging the books, she can help you, Mister Malfoy. I'll come to check on you two later," McGonagall said, leaving the room before Draco could protest.

Grinning, Ginny walked towards the Transfiguration texts and listened as Draco cursed and grumbled. Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she saw that he hadn't even moved from his seat.

"Aren't you going to get started?" Ginny asked, frowning.

Draco smirked and spread his hands. "You heard her, you're to help me when you're done over there. I think I'll just wait until I have some help."

"She wanted you to work on the floor alone a bit because you were a smart ass, you git. It's called _punishment_," she explained, scowling as she arranged the textbooks.

"I don't think I need punishment," he said lightly, leaning his chair back on its two hind legs to gaze up at the ceiling.

"You don't, do you?" Ginny asked angrily. She slammed the textbook in her hands down on the table and turned, leaning against the table the textbooks were piled upon and crossing her arms. "Then I won't arrange the textbooks until you get started on the floor."

Draco chuckled, not even taking his eyes away from the ceiling. "Are you daft? Sure, I'll get in trouble for not doing the floor, but you'll get in trouble for not arranging the books and for not helping with the floor," he pointed out.

Ginny faltered slightly as she realized that he was right. Then she jutted out her chin determinedly. "I'll just explain to her why I didn't do it. She'll understand."

Draco shrugged a shoulder. "She might. But then again, it is McGonagall we're talking about. Do you really think she cares about reasons? From what I've seen, she only cares that students do as they're told. So go ahead, Weasley, don't arrange the textbooks and the floor won't be done. We'll see what kind of a mood McGonagall's in when she gets back. You might get lucky."

The wheels in Ginny's head were spinning furiously, trying to think of a way that she could beat Malfoy in this game but she came up with nothing. She scowled. How did he always have the upper hand?! "Sodding bastard, I hate you."

"Likewise, Weasley," he said, smirking up at the ceiling.

Draco was so self-assured and overconfident and calm about the entire situation that it irritated Ginny to no end. She let out a frustrated growl before snatching up a large and very heavy Transfiguration textbook and chucking it at his stomach. Quidditch had given the Slytherin Seeker quick reflexes and he easily caught it though the force of catching the heavy book that was hurtled at his stomach while he was precariously balanced on two chair legs caused him to topple over backwards.

"Bloody hell! What's the big idea, Weasley?" Draco snarled, climbing to his feet. Storming over to Ginny, he shoved the textbook into her hands.

"If you weren't such an insufferable, conceited, materialistic bastard all the time," Ginny shouted, shoving the textbook back into his chest, with a force that made him stumble backwards a few steps, "maybe I'd be a little nicer."

"Do you really think I, a Malfoy, care about what you, a Weasley, think of me? And I don't care one way or another whether you're nice to me or not," Draco sneered, shoving the book into her stomach and making her stumble backwards.

"And by the way," Draco added, smirking maliciously as he picked up the bucket containing the soapy water that he was supposed to use to clean the floor, "here's a bit of something to cool off that temper of yours." With this said, he overturned the bucket, emptying the contents over Ginny's head.

Ginny gaped in wide-eyed shock as her mouth fell open. Then she glared furiously, a dangerous glint flashing through her eyes, and Draco knew he'd regret dumping that bucket on her in two seconds.

"You bastard!" she shouted, striding forward and, once again, kneeing Draco.

"Aw, shit," Draco cursed, doubling over in pain as he got a severe sense of déjà vu when he glanced up at the furious red-head glaring down at him. Something told him that if he kept pissing this particular redhead off, he wouldn't be able to produce any Malfoy heirs in the future.

Professor McGonagall, who had been watching this entire event through the spell she had placed on the door to the Transfiguration classroom that allowed her to see through the door, but didn't permit Draco and Ginny to see her, frowned. Maybe the conclusion to this project was farther away than she thought. She'd have to double her efforts, she decided, since they seemed to hate each other…a lot…a lot, a lot…

Removing the spell, Professor McGonagall opened the door and stepped inside, pretending to be shocked by the sight before her.

"Miss Weasley! Mister Malfoy! What is going on here?" McGonagall shouted sternly, eyeing Draco doubled over in pain and Ginny soaking wet and smelling of lemons. When neither Draco nor Ginny spoke up, McGonagall's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Someone had better explain now," she said slowly and deliberately.

Ginny gulped. Great, they had really done it now. Ginny had never seen McGonagall this angry. Ginny opened her mouth to speak when Draco cut her off.

"She kneed me professor," he said bluntly.

Ginny gaped at him. "W-w-with good reason!" she spluttered. Then she looked to McGonagall, pointing at the empty bucket, "He poured the water in that bucket on my head."

"Because you wouldn't arrange the books!"

"Damn you, Malfoy! You wouldn't get working on the floor!" Ginny shouted. "You are such a slimy git!" she hissed.

Draco sneered nastily. "Better a rich slimy git than a pathetic little impoverished weasel."

"That is low, Malfoy, you arrogant bastard!" Ginny said, jabbing her finger into his chest to emphasize each word.

They both seemed to have forgotten that McGonagall was in the room as they glared daggers at each other.

_'Oh dear…'_ McGonagall thought. _'I've got my work cut out for me…'_

"Miss Weasley! Mister Malfoy!" When they gave no indication of having heard her and just continued glaring at each other, McGonagall shouted, "SIT DOWN! Both of you, NOW!"

Ginny and Draco glanced in her direction and sat down at two tables on the opposite side of the room from each other, as far away from the other as they could possibly get. Ginny huffed angrily, crossing her arms and stubbornly looking away from Draco; Draco scowled up at the ceiling. They both kept casting furious glares at the other and if their eyes ever met, they immediately looked away, scowling and glaring.

Sighing inwardly, but outwardly marching over to stand behind her desk and peer sternly over her spectacles at the pair, she tapped her foot impatiently, her arms crossed. "Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"I have nothing to say for myself but I do have a piece of advice for _Malfoy_: put a plastic bag over your head and breathe!" Ginny snapped, glaring at Draco.

"And some advice for you, _Weasley_: fall off the face of the earth so no one has to look at you or deal with you anymore. It would do everyone a world of good for you to disappear, I'm sure. I doubt they'd notice you were missing," Draco retorted, glaring back.

"Never," Professor McGonagall said, her voice low, "never in all my years here at Hogwarts have I ever seen such enmity! True, there has always been rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor, but never, _never _this extreme! You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves! You're acting like children."

Ginny bowed her head, flushing slightly, but Draco just continued to glower.

"Be assured that the headmaster will hear of this!"

Ginny looked up and began to protest but, seeing McGonagall stern expression, she just nodded glumly.

"And you'll both attend detentions for the rest of the week and the week after that. You're dismissed for today. I hope you'll arrive tomorrow with a higher maturity level," McGonagall said pointedly, peering at them both over her spectacles before leaving the classroom.

As soon as Ginny heard the door shut behind McGonagall, she sat up so quickly that her chair fell backwards, and she furiously yanked her bag off the desk before marching to the door and leaving as well.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This is so much fun. . Haha, poor Draco, if he keeps making Ginny mad, he won't be able to reproduce. Haha…Hey wait a minute! I want him to be able to reproduce! I want to have your baby, Draco! **Sob** Whoa…did I just say that out loud? Errrr…oops…


	3. You're the closest to heaven that I'll e...

**Author's Note:** Wow, according to a reviewer, people actually do read these things. I don't read them when I'm reading a fanfic. Well sometimes my eyes are just drawn to them for some unknown reason but otherwise, I just skip right over them. I'm pretty impatient so I usually can't wait to read the actual story. Well hmm…that was enlightening. Now I've actually got to say important stuff in these things…

**Disclaimer:** Someone else also commented that these things are important and yes, I do know that. I was just kidding. And I always put them too **Beams proudly and points to her collection of disclaimers** Okay, time to apply mathematical bi-conditionals (Well, I think they were called bi-conditionals. Word underlined it in red when I spelled it so maybe that's not what they're called. But hey, I learned them last year! How can you expect me to remember the name? I mean…it's math class…) in here: If I'm J.K. Rowling, then I own the Harry Potter characters. I'm not J.K. Rowling so therefore I do not own the Harry Potter characters. Wait…that's not a bi-conditional. That's an example of something not a bi-conditional. Haha, my math teacher would be so proud of me…

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* * *

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Just A Theory

**Chapter 3**

Ginny fumed as she stomped down the hall. She had always known that Draco Malfoy was egotistical and conceited and arrogant, but until recently, she had never had to deal with Draco. He had never targeted her and instead had much more fun tormenting Harry, Hermione, and Ron. He had left her well alone. In her six years at Hogwarts, he had said perhaps three words to her and those three were probably "Move now, Weasley." And now he was just everywhere and she had detention with him!

Entering the library, she sat at one of the tables in the back and began to work on her homework, still in a foul temper.

* * *

_'Reverse psychology…reverse psychology…What the hell is reverse psychology?! Ah well, might as well give it a shot. I am getting extra credit after all,'_ Blaise Zabini thought to himself as he looked around the halls, searching for a redheaded sixth year Gryffindor. _'I suppose it's just psychology…in reverse. Yeah, that makes sense…So like…everything is just…in reverse! Yeah…that definitely makes sense…Everything in reverse…'_

Entering the library, he smiled when he found Ginny sitting at the back of the library, scribbling furiously, her face screwed up in concentration and anger.

She looked up when Blaise plopped himself in the chair beside her and Blaise smiled. "Bye, I'm not Blaise Zabini, I think we met," he said, holding out his hand.

Ginny blinked at him owlishly. "What?" she asked finally.

"Bye, I'm not Blaise Zabini," Blaise repeated. _'Wow, this reverse psychology stuff is easy!'_

"Yeeeaaahh…maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey," Ginny suggested.

Blaise looked put out. _'Why isn't this reverse psychology thing working?!'_ Blaise frowned, his brow furrowed in thought. He was doing everything in reverse. Wait, if he were doing everything in reverse, his name wouldn't be Blaise Zabini; it would be Zabini Blaise. Or would he have to be the reverse of himself? And if everything were reversed, he wouldn't hold out his hand. But then what would he do with his hand?

Blaise sighed in irritation. _'This reverse psychology stuff is hard!'_

He decided to go request that Professor McGonagall clarify just what reverse psychology was. "Hi!" he called over his shoulder to Ginny as he hurried out of the library to find Professor McGonagall.

Half an hour later, Blaise Zabini strode confidently into the library. He now knew what reverse psychology was so he was prepared to face the fiery Gryffindor. His only regret was that he made himself look like a fool the last time he tried reverse psychology.

_'Well, this time I'll do it right!'_ he thought. He was glad to see that she was still busily working.

The Slytherin smiled as he once again plopped himself into the chair beside her. "Blaise Zabini, I don't think we've met before," he said, holding out his hand.

Ginny glanced down at the hand suspiciously and simply said, "No."

Blaise froze for a moment and then laughed, realizing that she had said no because she thought that he was only being nice to her to get something. "No, no, I'm not here to ask you for any favors or anything like that. I've just heard about your rows with Malfoy."

Ginny finally took his hand and shook it. "Ginny Weasley."

"Ah, I'm hearing that name a lot lately. You should hear Draco ranting in our common room. He threw two of my textbooks across the room," Blaise said, sitting back in his chair and smiling.

"Good! That means I pissed him off!" Ginny snapped, smiling smugly.

Blaise chuckled, not in the least perturbed by her sharp tone. He knew she was mad at Draco. He was just about to comment when Vincent Crabbe ambled by and then did a double take as he saw Blaise Zabini sitting with Ginny Weasley.

"No way!" Crabbe exclaimed, looking as if someone had just told him that the earth did not go around the sun. "Don't tell me you fanatic the Weaster girl too!"

Blaise sighed, shaking his head. "No, Crabbe, I don't 'fanatic' the _Weasley_ girl," Blaise said slowly, hoping Crabbe would understand the first time. Fat chance.

"So you don't fanatic the Weasley girl but you do fanatic the Weaster girl?" Crabbe asked, wearing his usual confused expression.

"There is no Weaster girl, Crabbe! And it's 'fancy' not 'fanatic,'" Blaise said, his patience quickly thinning.

Crabbe surveyed Ginny, looking confused. "So how come I can see her? The Weaster girl, I mean. If there is no Weaster girl…am I just hall…halluci…hall…seeing things?"

"That's not the Weaster girl, that's Ginny Weasley!" Blaise shouted exasperatedly, earning him a glare from Madam Pince.

"Then where's the Weaster girl?" Crabbe asked, looking behind him as if he thought she were standing right behind him.

"I…I killed her, okay? Now…go do something useful and semi-intelligent," Blaise commanded.

Instead of leaving to do something "semi-intelligent," Crabbe grabbed a huge textbook and raised it as if to hit Ginny over the head with it.

"What the hell are you trying to pull?!" Blaise shouted, jumping to his feet and snatching the book from Crabbe.

"Well you said you killed the Westert girl and I didn't kill her so she's still sitting there. Y'can't see her as you already killed her. I figgered I should prolly kill her too," Crabbe explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Blaise blinked at him. "That didn't make…that doesn't make sense…" Then he growled in impatience. "Just go…Repeat after me: find Draco, tell him Blaise sent you to keep him company."

"Find Draco, tell him Blaise sent you to keep him company," Crabbe repeated obediently.

"No! Tell him Blaise sent _you_ to keep him company," Blaise corrected.

"That's what I said!"

Blaise sighed, rubbing his temples. "Find Draco, tell him that Blaise sent Crabbe to keep him company."

Crabbe nodded and began to leave the library. As he was leaving, Blaise could hear him mumbling to himself, "Find Draco, tell him that Blaise sent Crabbe to keep him company. Find Blaise, tell him that Draco sent a crab to his company. Lose Blaise, tell Draco that his company sells crabs…"

Sighing again, Blaise sat down once more and saw that Ginny was laughing.

"Now…where was I? Oh yes! It seems the only place Draco can escape your wrath is in his dormitory," he said.

"And he's lucky I can't come in there or I'd give him some pieces of my mind!"

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to 'invade his personal bubble' anyway. He'd be pretty damn angry if you showed up in his dormitory to have another verbal war. You should definitely stay away from him in his dormitory. You wouldn't be able to handle him in his worst temper," Blaise said casually.

"I could take him in his worst temper any day! I'm not afraid of him. What's the password to the common room? It's payback time," Ginny said determinedly.

"No, no, you really don't want to mess with him 'in his territory' so to speak," Blaise warned lightly.

"But if it'll really upset him, I want to do it!" Ginny insisted.

"Well the password's 'mandrake root' but you really shouldn't try to do-" Blaise began but when he looked up, he saw that she was already leaving the library. Blaise grinned. _'This psychology thing's pretty easy. I never knew minds were so easy to manipulate…'_

* * *

"Mandrake root," Ginny said to the damp stone wall in front of her. It immediately opened to reveal a common room much like Gryffindor's except that the décor was green and silver and black instead of red and gold. She poked her head inside first to make sure no Slytherins were in the common room. When she saw that the common room was empty, she stomped over to the spiral stairwell that led up to the boys' dormitories, hoping that it would also be empty save for Draco.

It took a few minutes of searching before she found the seventh years boys' dormitory as she didn't exactly know her way around the Slytherin dormitories but when she had found it, she threw open the door and marched purposefully inside, slamming the door shut behind her. She looked around the dormitory and-

"Oh gods!" Ginny cried, turning around to face the closed door, her cheeks burning. Try as she might, she couldn't push the image of Draco with only a towel around his waist from her mind.

"Shit Weasley! What's the big idea?" Draco demanded, pulling the towel tighter around his waist.

"I was only-I mean I was trying to-" Ginny stuttered, her cheeks on fire.

"You can turn around and quit stuttering like an idiot now," Draco said wryly.

When Ginny turned, she saw that the towel was replaced with a pair of black silk boxers, and she immediately turned to face the door again, two crimson spots burning her cheeks. "Get dressed!" she said, her voice not as calm or steady as she had intended.

"I am! I was getting ready to _sleep_ when you kicked down the damn door!" Draco grit out irritably.

"Well I was only-I mean…Well I was just…" Ginny said. _'Oh bloody hell! I forgot why I came here! I'm going to look like such an idiot!'_

"Talk to me, Weasley, not the wall! What's the matter with you?" Draco demanded, storming over to her and grabbing her by the shoulders, whipping her around to face him.

Ginny's gaze traveled down to the floor embarrassedly but then she realized that even looking at the floor wasn't safe anymore since she could see his flat stomach and his chiseled chest. So she looked up at the ceiling instead.

Seeing this, Draco smirked complacently. "What's wrong? Don't like seeing me half naked? Or maybe you're afraid you like it a bit too much, eh?"

Ginny glared up at the ceiling. "I am not-I mean-I do not! I mean…no!"

"So what are you doing in here, Weasley? Hopefully you have a reason," he said, stepping away.

_'Great! He just had to ask the question I knew he'd eventually ask. Damn! Why'd I come here?! I don't even remember!'_

"Well…" Ginny began uncertainly, groping for an explanation.

"Oh gods, you're kidding me, right Weasley?" Draco asked in disbelief.

"Well, I originally had a reason to be here, I swear!" Ginny insisted to the ceiling. "I just sort of…forgot what the reason was…"

"You're kidding…" Then he looked at her face and his expression became angrily shocked. "You're not kidding! Bloody hell, Weasley, you kick in _my_ door with _me_ in the middle of getting dressed. You have the nerve to come in _my_ dorm room and you don't even have a _reason_?!"

Ginny glared at him, forgetting, in her anger, that he was standing in front of her half naked and she had a clear view of his great body. "Why are you acting like you own the place?! You share this dorm with other people!"

"They sure don't want you in here any more than I do, Weasley!" Draco retorted.

"Well I don't think Blaise would care one way or another," Ginny blurted angrily, remembering that she had talked to Blaise before she had stormed into Draco's dorm room.

"BLAISE?! Blaise told you to come in here?!" Draco roared, looking around the room as if he were expecting to find Blaise chuckling in a corner.

"Well, no, not exactly, but I did get the password from him," Ginny admitted.

"He's dead! I knew he'd try something like this! I knew it!" Draco ranted, pacing the dorm room.

"How'd you know that?" Ginny asked, finally remembering that she was in the same room with a half naked Draco Malfoy and she flushed, but she didn't look away since he didn't seem to notice that she was staring at him anyway.

"He has this crack-pot theory and I told him he was stark raving mad though he didn't seem to believe me. Damn him!"

"What's the theory?" Ginny asked, suddenly curious; she still couldn't tear her eyes away from him, try as she might.

"It's just a theory, and it's really none of your business, Weasley," he snarled, ceasing his pacing. "Now get out!"

"Hey, I came here to do something and I'm going to do it!" Ginny shouted, placing her feet firmly on the ground to show that she wasn't leaving. She was just as stubborn as he was and she would prove it too!

"You don't remember why you came here so you've got nothing to do. So leave, now!"

She knew that he was right about this one though; she didn't remember why she was here or what she had come to do and so had nothing to do.

Draco suddenly smirked. "You're staring, Weasley," he pointed out smugly, finally noticing that she was indeed staring at him.

Ginny jumped, immediately shifting her gaze to the wall to her right. "Am not," she protested, blushing profusely.

Draco's smirk grew but then he scowled and moved closer to her, dropping his voice to an angry hiss, "Now get OUT!"

Ginny's eyes locked with his and they glared angrily at each other. "I've decided to leave anyway," she sniffed. "But just know that I'm not leaving because you told me to; I'm leaving because I want to."

"That's right, Weasley, follow my orders," Draco said, smirking. "A Weasley following a Malfoy's orders: all is right in the world. Now all you need to do is kneel at my feet and all will be as it should be."

Ginny, who had just been turning towards the door, whirled around to face him, glaring furiously as anger dangerously flashed in her eyes. Draco almost - _almost,_ mind you - backed away, remembering what had happened the last time he had made her this angry. Draco sensibly turned his body slightly so that her knee wouldn't have easy access to certain parts essential to his male anatomy.

But this time, she didn't knee him, and instead, marched up to him and shoved him in the chest – hard - so that he stumbled backwards before regaining his balance and glaring at her. She was just about to punch him or slap him or something and he grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and wrestled her to the ground, straddling her. She struggled and he glared down at her grabbing her arms with a hand, and raising the other hand to strike her.

"Go ahead, hit me," she said, glaring challengingly up at him, seeing that he was hesitating.

"I don't hit girls," he ground out. "But if I did, you'd be beaten to a pulp right now."

Ginny smirked tauntingly. "Oh, does Draco Malfoy have morals now? Since when did that happen? You kill girls though, right? That doesn't necessarily take hitting, so go ahead, kill me. A Death Eater such as yourself should have plenty of experience with killing people, right? Maybe a rape here, a murder there, a ritual sacrifice to your dear half-Muggle master, licking the shoes of your dear half-Muggle master-" Ginny got no further since Draco had slapped her.

Grabbing her by the front of her robes, he lifted her up slightly so that her face was inches from his. Ginny's eyes widened, her cheek stinging painfully; she had never seen _anyone_ as angry as Draco looked then, and when he was as angry as he was, he looked truly frightening. She knew that she had been crossing the line by saying all the things that she had said, but she only truly realized the gravity of just how far she had gone when she looked up into his furious face.

"Never, _never_, say anything like that again or you'll regret it, _Weasley_, you hear me?" he asked her, his voice low and deathly dangerous.

Ginny's mouth opened and closed; she was too terrified to say anything.

"I said, do you hear me?" he asked, shaking her violently by the shoulders, the back of her head hitting the ground.

Ginny nodded vigorously. She still couldn't make herself say anything; she didn't trust her voice just yet. He looked angry enough to kill, literally.

He glanced down at her, his jaw relaxing slightly, and for a moment, as he looked down and saw her wide-eyed fear, she thought that he almost looked sorry. Then she blinked and the apologetic expression was gone, replaced by his usual hard, cold mask. Getting to his feet, he turned his back to her as he gazed impassively out the window over the darkened Hogwarts grounds, the only source of light being the sliver of a moon.

Ginny was frozen in fear and shock for a few moments before carefully and cautiously climbing to her feet, watching Draco for any sort of reaction, as if he would lunge towards her throat at any moment. After what she had just witnessed, she wouldn't be surprised if he slit her throat right in the dormitory.

She backed slowly towards the door, her eyes fixed on him as she groped for the handle of the door. "I-I'm sorry…" she whispered, her voice trembling, before she threw open the door and fled, only daring to stop running when she was in the safe and comfortable atmosphere of the Gryffindor common room where she collapsed in a squashy red arm chair near the fire.

Reaching up, she gingerly fingered the back of her head and winced as she applied slight pressure; she knew she would have a bruise there tomorrow morning.

"Hey Gin, what's up? You look like you just ran around Hogwarts two times over."

Ginny glanced up quickly to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting in armchairs near her.

"Oh…It's nothing. I had detention earlier and I decided to…run back to the common room…" Ginny explained.

"Oh that's right! You had detention with Malfoy today," Ron said, scowling.

Harry frowned. "What'd you run for?"

"Oh well…if you spent time with Malfoy, you'd want to run too," Ginny said, laughing nervously.

Ron grinned, his eyes lighting up. "I wouldn't run. I'd stay to beat that bloody bastard senseless."

"And I'd help," Harry added.

"And I'd tell you both not to," Hermione said, glaring pointedly at Harry and Ron.

Ginny relaxed considerably. They seemed to have bought her story…for now.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Woo, Draco pissed. Poor Ginny. Didn't Blaise warn her about encroaching on Draco's "territory?" If anyone's about to comment about McGonagall's manipulative personality, you'll start to see her conflicting feelings about her psychology project and what she's doing in the next chapters. She really starts to consider whether or not what she's doing is right. So just know her character will start evening out in the next chapters. Draco and Ginny also start to get suspicious, as well as Blaise Zabini.

Preview of next chapter (fun fun chapter):

_"__Blaise paused in the hall, blinking in confusion. What exactly was McGonagall playing at anyway?"_

"So, she had two options now: pick two new specimens who hated each other or triple her efforts and continue using Draco and Ginny as her specimens."

_"__Minerva shook her head. She wasn't manipulating them; it was psychology."_

_"'I don't apologize, Weasley. I was just stating a fact.'"_

"Draco snorted derisively, still trying to shake the mouse out of his pants. 'Even if you hadn't said it, you would have been thinking it.'"

_"__Ginny smirked, glancing down pointedly at his pants._

'No way in hell, my pants stay on, Weasley,' Draco snapped."


	4. And I don't want to go home right now

**Author's Note:** Gomen nasai! **bows repeatedly** Thanks for being patient guys. .;; I've been super busy with school. I've still been writing but I just haven't had the time to type everything and post it. I've had this chapter ready for quite some time now but I kept forgetting about it. . I should be doing some homework but I've got plenty of time to do that AFTER posting this and dancing in the lovely rain that's falling right now . Grrr, teachers are evil. Evil, evil, evil. I can't wait till winter break. Two whole weeks of no school **sighs dreamily** But till then I'll be busy, busy, busy. -.-;;

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything in here except perhaps the course "Psychology Made Easy Through Owl Post." I'm pretty sure I can claim ownership of that.

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* * *

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Just A Theory

**Chapter 4**

Right after Ginny left the dormitory, Draco stormed into the bathroom. When the sound of the shower faucets being turned on could be heard, Blaise finally shrugged off the Invisibility Cloak that Professor McGonagall had let him use and frowned. That exchange hadn't gone as well as he had planned; it had almost gotten downright dangerous.

After Ginny hurried out of the library, Blaise pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of his bag and ran after her, hastily pulling it on as he sprinted down the halls. He had almost managed to catch up to Ginny and entered the Slytherin seventh year boy's dormitory right after her. Neither Malfoy nor Weasley seemed to have noticed the fact that right after Ginny entered the room, the door to the dormitory had swung open as if on its own, but that was Blaise entering. He had quickly moved to a dark corner of the dark dormitory and was at first pleased with what was transpiring. A half-naked Draco Malfoy seemed to have the same effect on Ginny Weasley that he had on most girls, and even Draco seemed a bit less cool and composed than normal.

Somehow, things had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Blaise had been hoping that Ginny wouldn't bring up his name while she was explaining what she was doing in the Slytherin boy's dormitories, but she mentioned him, and now he would have to suffer Draco's wrath later.

Then, their tempers got the best of them and soon, Draco looked ready to kill. She challenged him _and_ taunted him, entirely the wrong thing to do at the moment for he _did _strike her and she seemed terrified. Blaise had just been preparing to step in to prevent Draco from injuring the girl any further when Draco seemed to realize that gravity of his actions and stopped. He managed to catch Ginny's expression as she fled the dorm room and she looked ten times worse than she would have if she had seen a thestral.

Blaise sighed as he left the dorm room to return the cloak to Professor McGonagall and tell her what had happened. He doubted that she would be pleased.

He paused in the hall, blinking in confusion. What exactly was McGonagall playing at anyway? Why did she want him to do all these things for her? She had said that she wanted to improve inter-house relationships, but if she were doing that, why was she focusing her efforts on Draco and Ginny alone? There had to be more to it than what she was letting on, Blaise decided.

* * *

Professor Minerva McGonagall frowned as she paced the length of her bedroom by the light of the fire. She was not happy with the news that Blaise Zabini had brought her. Ginny was probably terrified of Draco now. Not to mention that Draco had almost injured a member of her own house! This psychology thing was getting a bit dangerous and precarious.

Ginny probably wouldn't dare come within ten feet of the boy now and McGonagall certainly couldn't blame the girl. Perhaps, she decided, this was getting too dangerous to continue. Then Minerva shook her head. Of course it wasn't! It was one mistake! Psychology was not dangerous. It helped people.

But Draco and Ginny both had such horrible tempers that proving her psychology theory using them would be extremely difficult; even more difficult than she had first guessed, as their hate seemed to be deeper than the depths of all the oceans combined.

So, she had two options now: pick two new specimens who hated each other or triple her efforts and continue using Draco and Ginny as her specimens. Minerva paused in her pacing to consider the first option for a moment. She could think of no two people who hated each other as truly as Ginny and Draco hated each other. The only hatred she could find to rival Draco and Ginny's was Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley's hatred for the young Malfoy, and they would hardly work as specimens for this project. Professor McGonagall had no other choice but to triple her efforts and continue using her two specimens.

Then Minerva's thoughtful frown deepened, her lips pressing into an even thinner, sterner line. She just didn't feel right. She didn't feel comfortable calling Draco and Ginny 'specimens.' She felt as if she were using them - manipulating them - and professors did not do that.

Then she shook her head. She wasn't manipulating them; it was psychology!

* * *

Ginny sighed as she slowly made her way down the hall, dreading the detention she was about to walk into. All that day, whenever she had so much as spotted a flash of pale blond hair out of the corner of her eye, she had turned tail and fled, even if the pale blond hair turned out to be some girl's bleached hair.

She hated to admit it, but she was a bit afraid of Draco Malfoy now that she had caught the pinnacle of his fury. When he had glared down at her after he struck her, she feared that she wouldn't get out of that dorm room alive. Now, she couldn't close her eyes without seeing his face, a tempest of greatest fury. If looks could kill, Ginny would have died a thousand times over when Draco glowered down at her.

Not to mention the fact that the entire experience had been rather embarrassing. She had kicked in the door to his dorm room and then couldn't even remember why she had come in the first place. Then she had stuttered and mumbled like an idiot.

That Zabini boy had tricked her or something. He had done…something! One minute she was talking to him and laughing at Crabbe, and the next minute she was walking in on a naked Draco Malfoy. Well, she amended, half-naked, though a towel hardly counted as clothing. Ginny decided that she would just have to talk to Blaise later. He would definitely get what was coming to him.

Poking her head into the Transfiguration classroom, she sighed in relief to find that the classroom was empty and that Malfoy and McGonagall hadn't arrived yet. Setting her bag on a table she took a seat, waiting for them to show up. Then she glanced down to see that hundreds of white mice were scurrying along the classroom floor. She fervently hoped that she hadn't stepped on any of them on her way to the table as she didn't wish to wear mice remains on her shoes.

Then Ginny panicked as she wondered what she would do if Malfoy showed up before Professor McGonagall did. Would he still be angry? Would he try to do something while there was no professor in the room? Would he laugh at her for looking so stupid the day before?

The door creaked open and her head whirled around. She quietly sighed in relief as she saw Professor McGonagall enter the room. Her nerves tensed slightly again as she saw that an impassive-looking Draco entered right after her.

Ginny turned to look at Professor McGonagall, not daring to let her eyes wander, lest she catch Draco's gaze. Ginny could feel her cheeks heating up as she no doubt began to blush as red as a fire engine.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, frowning inwardly as she saw that Ginny refused to look anywhere but the front of the room. "As you both can undoubtedly see, my last class of the day, a first-year class, let their mice escape. They were supposed to be transfiguring their mice into pincushions but a particularly clumsy student knocked the cage over. Instead of using magic to return the mice to their cages, I thought it would be the perfect detention chore for you two.

"So get working. I'll be back to check upon your progress soon, though if yesterday was any example, I may be returning just to make sure you haven't killed each other. I had better not see anything like yesterday when I return," McGonagall said, glaring sternly at them over her glasses before leaving the classroom and shutting the door behind her.

Ginny gulped, thinking to herself that there may have been truth behind Professor McGonagall's words about killing each other, though the professor didn't know it. Well, she thought the professor didn't know it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Draco stand and grab a white mouse off the tabletop and she felt relief flood through her; at least he wasn't going to argue today, it seemed. Watching as he strode over to the front of the room to put the mouse into the cage, his catlike grace reminded her of how good he looked without a shirt on.

_'Good and evil,'_ she thought to herself. _'Good and evil and malicious and cruel. Good and evil and cruel and mean and brutal and nasty and spiteful!'_

And, just like a cat, he was entirely unpredictable. A cat could be purring nicely as you stroke it one minute, and then it would spring to its feet and hiss and claw the next. Draco was exactly like that, except for the fact that he never purred nicely. In fact, he was always clawing and hissing, so maybe he wasn't completely unpredictable. And maybe that didn't exactly make him like a cat. He was more like a rattlesnake you were poking in the head with a paperclip.

But then again, maybe she was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. He wouldn't have _really_ hurt her, would he?

_'Well, that blow was pretty painful,'_ Ginny admitted. _'And he did smack my head against the floor a few times.'_ But he wouldn't have seriously injured her… right?

Getting to her feet, she moved to the opposite side of the room that Draco was working on and started catching mice. After five minutes, she had only managed to catch one mouse and she began growling and muttering in frustration.

"Stupid mouse…stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered, trying to grab a mouse by the tail, but the mouse scurried away and Ginny fell forward onto the floor instead. "Dammit, stupid, stupid, stupid mice!"

Ginny looked over at Draco, who seemed to be having more luck than her. Being the Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team had given him quick reflexes and he caught the mice with much more ease than Ginny. Feeling her eyes on him, he glanced up at her and she jumped, immediately looking away.

Draco straightened, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. He felt as if he should apologize. Wait, he never apologized, but he still felt the need to say something.

"Listen, Weasley." He flinched as he saw her shoulders tense. Was she that afraid of him now? But she was blushing profusely so maybe she was just incredibly embarrassed. Either way, he needed to say something. "I'm so…" he began to say but then stopped himself. Draco Malfoy just didn't say the word 'sorry.' Or at least he didn't say the word and mean it.

"Don't come into the Slytherin dormitories and it won't happen again," he finally snapped coldly.

Ginny froze for a moment and then the corners of her lips twitched slightly as she glanced at him over her shoulder. "Was that your idea of an apology?"

Draco felt relieved. She seemed to have forgiven him anyway. Then he scowled at her. "I don't apologize, Weasley. I was just stating a fact."

She shook her head, her back still to him, but she felt as if the tension in her body had suddenly lifted. He didn't seem to be about to kill her, which was good. They both began to catch mice again, and Draco soon heard Ginny humming under her breath. Soon she began to sing the words.

Finally, Draco drawled, "Quit strangling those mice, Weasley."

Ginny threw a withering glare over her shoulder at him. They worked in silence for long minutes and all that could be heard was the occasional curse from Ginny and the squeaking of the mice. After about five minutes of this, not even turning to look at him, Ginny said, "I'm sorry."

"For what, Weasley?" Draco ground out, irritated with a mouse that had scurried up his pant leg.

"For…for what I said last night. It was…totally out of line. I…shouldn't have said it and I'm sorry," she said, slowly and hesitantly.

Draco snorted derisively, still trying to shake the mouse out of his pants. "Even if you hadn't said it, you would have been thinking it. Besides, you already apologized for it last night."

"I know, but I didn't think you had heard me. I mean it though, I'm truly sorry," she insisted earnestly. When he didn't answer her, she turned around and burst into laughter as she saw Draco trying to shake a mouse out of his pants.

"This isn't funny, Weasley!" Draco snapped, lifting his leg and shaking it. "Oh damn!" he cursed as the mouse crawled even higher.

"I know. It's really…not…funny…at…all. I shouldn't…laugh…" Ginny said, between fits of giggles, doubling over in laughter. Then she straightened, looking at him seriously, though her eyes gave away her mirth. "You know what you'll have to do now, don't you?"

"And what's that, Weasley?" Draco asked, eager to have the mouse out of his pants.

Ginny smirked, glancing down pointedly at his pants.

"No way in hell, my pants stay on, Weasley," he snapped.

Ginny shrugged and turned her back to him as she returned to catching mice, listening to Draco curse and mutter behind her.

"I'm telling you, if you want the mouse out of your pants…" she said, trailing off deliberately.

Draco sneered at her back. "Didn't realize you were so keen to get my pants off, Weasley."

Ginny turned to scowl at him. "You're right, keep your pants on. I don't want to be mentally scarred for life."

Draco smirked, still attempting to keep his superior, cool, and composed attitude while trying to shake the mouse out of his pants, a task that was very hard to do.

"Come on, you can't honestly say that you don't want me to-Ow! Ow! Damn!" he shouted suddenly. "It's biting me! Ow, damn, damn!"

Ginny hurried over to him. "Where is it?"

Draco glared down at her. "Where do you think it is, Weasley?" he asked, giving her a look that clearly said, 'Just how daft are you?'

Ginny flushed. "If that's where it is, I'm not helping you! No way!"

"Fine, damn it!" he cursed, taking off his robe and unbuttoning his pants.

Ginny's blush deepened and she turned around so that her back was to him.

"Damn, it keeps moving, damn it!" he cursed.

"Oh for crying out loud!" Ginny shouted, exasperated, turning to face Draco again, still blushing profusely. He was now only wearing his dark green sweater vest, white collared shirt, and a pair of black silk boxers. His pants were pooled at his ankles. _'I can't believe I'm doing this…'_ she thought to herself as she closed her eyes and, standing as far away as possible while still being able to reach him, grabbed the waistline of his boxers. She shook the boxers slightly and the mouse finally fell out and Draco breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oi, Gin! I heard some shouting! If that bastard so much as-"

Ginny's eyes snapped towards the door and she paled when she saw Ron and Harry at the door, their eyes wide as they gazed at the scene before them. Ginny looked at her hands; they were still holding the waistline of Draco's boxers, his pants discarded some ways behind them.

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**Author's Note:** Wahaha, finally a new chapter. I feel relieved. I've been remembering to post this chapter at all the wrong times and at all the right times I forgot about it.


	5. And all I can taste is this moment

**Author's Note:** Uwah, sorry for not updating sooner guys. I figured I would have plenty of time to update since I was on winter break but I had to go down to Indiana for a week to visit my grandparents and I just got home yesterday. I was thinking I could maybe update there but the computer in their house was ANCIENT. I mean, to print something, the printer chiseled everything onto pieces of slate. Okay, it's not that ancient, but it was still really old and really slow. Anyway, this chapter hasn't been beta-read because I was eager to get this chapter posted so you wouldn't all have to wait much longer. And I was feeling lazy. So I just re-read through the chapter once or twice to fix some stuff. And your reviews are totally awesome, thanks bunches and bunches. Individual review responses will be at the end of the chapter.

**Disclaimer:** The GMMTBDM (Give Me Money To Buy Draco Malfoy) fundraiser is still going on. Any donations? -holds out her hat-

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Just a Theory

**Chapter V**

"Oh gods," Ginny muttered, taking two large steps backwards. If she was blushing before, that was nothing compared to the red that now coated her face.

Draco smirked at Harry and Ron, giving them a mockingly jaunty wave as he pulled on his pants. Ginny didn't understand how he could act so collected and superior even in a situation such as the one they were currently in. It was enough to make her want to bash his face in.

" 'ello Weasley, Potter. We're a bit busy at the moment, would you mind giving us some privacy?"

Ron's eyes were popping out of his head and Harry seemed utterly speechless. Well, not entirely speechless since he did manage to get out an "Uhh…"

Ginny gaped at Draco. "What are you playing at, Malfoy?" Then she turned towards Harry and Ron. "He had a mouse down his pants and it wouldn't come out so I had to help and…" she explained, trailing off.

Draco's smirk grew. "That was only her excuse for getting in my pants, of course."

"Malfoy, that's not what I was doing and you know it!" Ginny shouted, her hands on her hips.

Ron was now spluttering angrily as he advanced towards Draco. Draco ducked when Ron threw a punch at his head.

"Temper, temper, Weasley," Draco sneered. "Don't touch me or I'll have to disinfect my robes."

Draco caught Ron's punch and twisted his arm behind his back. Harry began to move forward to help Ron and Draco sniggered. "Stay where you are, Potter, or I'll break Weasley's arm."

Harry stopped in his tracks, his determined expression falling to become uncertain and hesitant. He was unsure as to whether or not Draco would actually dare to break Ron's arm. Harry didn't put it past Draco Malfoy to break someone's arm so he stayed where he was.

"You…you are…" Ginny muttered in frustration, before launching herself at Draco, causing him to release Ron's arms and knocking him to the ground.

Professor McGonagall, who had been watching through the door once again, opened it and stepped into the classroom, again feigning shock and disapprobation.

"MISS WEASLEY! MISTER MALFOY!" she roared.

Both Ginny and Draco, who had been wrestling each other (it was more like Ginny was trying to bash Draco's face in and he was defending) as Harry and Ron looked on in shock, froze and looked up into the furious face of Professor McGonagall.

_'Damn! Why does she always come at the wrong time?!'_ Ginny asked herself, as she and Draco both got to their feet. It was beginning to get suspicious how McGonagall always managed to appear at just the wrong moment. A mere thirty seconds earlier and she would have seen Draco threatening Ron and Harry.

"Never…" McGonagall spluttered angrily, "never…Come with me, you two."

Ginny and Draco obediently followed Professor McGonagall out of the classroom.

"Get back to whatever you were doing Mister Potter, Mister Weasley," McGonagall called over her shoulder.

McGonagall was silent as she strode briskly down the hall and Ginny dared not say anything. Draco, on the other hand, wasn't afraid of Professor McGonagall.

"As wonderful as this little tour of the castle is," Draco drawled, smirking, "I have important business elsewhere and a life to attend to."

"You're in no position to be mouthing off, Mister Malfoy," McGonagall said sternly, straining to keep her voice calm.

"Oh, but I think I'm always entitled to-" Draco began but Ginny elbowed him.

"Shut up!" she hissed.

"Do you really think I'll take orders from you, Weasley?" he snapped.

"If you value your life, you would do well by following my orders now," she retorted.

Draco scoffed derisively. "I hardly think my _life_ is on the line here, Weasley."

"If you don't shut up now, I'll kill you myself!"

"You wouldn't dare," Draco challenged.

"Keep talking and you'll find out if I dare or not!"

"You're too much of a goodie-two-shoes Gryffindor bitch and you wouldn't even think about-"

"IF YOU TWO ARE QUITE FINISHED!" McGonagall shouted, interrupting their arguing. "And I don't want to hear that kind of language again, Mister Malfoy."

Draco looked at her in mock innocence. "Why, what language, professor? The goodie-two-shoes part or the Gryffindor bi-"

"You are treading on dangerous ground, Mister Malfoy. If you wish to see just how angry I can get, finish that sentence."

Draco, for once, knew to keep his mouth shut.

_

* * *

_

'This just isn't working! How, how am I supposed to do this?! I've tried reverse psychology. I've tried using the cooperation in confinement idea. I've even applied pressure from an outside force, namely Blaise Zabini telling Draco Malfoy that he was flirting with Ginny Weasley and that he thought that Draco fancied Ginny. So now what?!'

Professor McGonagall thought. This thing just wasn't working so far. From the way things were looking, this project would be impossible.

At the moment, she was taking them to Professor Dumbledore's office. She decided to see what kind of punishment he would give them and then she would work from there, since she was out of ideas.

"Lemon drops," McGonagall said, and the gargoyle blocking the entrance to Dumbledore's office sprang to life and jumped to the side, revealing a winding staircase, enchanted to continually spiral upward. Draco, McGonagall, and Ginny stepped onto the stairs and McGonagall rapped on the door at the top of the stairs.

Ginny could hear muffled voices from inside and she fervently hoped that there weren't a bunch of professors having a meeting in there to see her being led into the headmaster's office. Then she changed her mind and hoped that there _were_ a bunch of professors having a meeting in there so that Dumbledore wouldn't have time for her and Draco.

"Do come in," they heard Dumbledore call.

Entering the office, Ginny realized that there weren't a bunch of professors at a meeting inside. In fact, there were no other people besides Dumbledore, who sat at his desk, his fingertips pressed together as he sat back in his chair.

Then she heard whispering and she glanced up to see many portraits of influential people and past headmasters of Hogwarts. She guessed that they had been the ones she had heard talking.

"Please, take a seat," Dumbledore said, waving his wand so that three chairs appeared in front of his desk.

Draco took the seat on the far right and Ginny took the chair farthest away from him. She even moved her chair to the left a bit so that she was as far as possible from him. Professor McGonagall took the seat in the middle, seeing as that was the only one left.

"Now, would someone care to explain why you're here?" Dumbledore asked, looking from Ginny to Draco to Professor McGonagall.

"I don't know why I'm here," Draco answered lightly, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms.

"You know perfectly well why you're here!" Ginny accused, leaning forward to glare at him across McGonagall.

"I don't," he answered evenly.

"You do!"

"I don't."

"You do!"

McGonagall frowned as she looked from Draco to Ginny during their exchange and Dumbledore listened interestedly.

"I don't. This is getting rather immature, Weasley."

"You threatened to break my brother's arm!" Ginny shouted.

"Only because he came at me first," Draco replied calmly.

"And that's only because you implied that we…we were…we were…" Ginny stuttered in embarrassment.

Draco smirked arrogantly. "Having sexual relations?" he supplied.

Ginny flushed a deep scarlet. "Yes, that!"

"Only because that's what it looked like."

"The truth couldn't have hurt," Ginny muttered, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

"Come off it, Weasley. Do you really think they would have believed the truth? I sure wouldn't have if I had been presented with a scene like the one we gave them," he said, waving a hand in her direction dismissively as his eyes wandered around the office.

McGonagall sighed. It would be quite some time before Dumbledore was told exactly what they were doing in his office, as it was a _very_ long story.

"We didn't give them a 'scene.' They would have believed the truth if we had both told them. If we had given them the same story, they would have known it was the truth. But no, you had to imply…stuff…and make it seem like…that's what we were really doing!"

"Gods Weasley, my pants were on the floor, you were all over me, what would you have thought if you had walked in on that?" Draco asked, snorting slightly.

Ginny's eyes widened as she made choking noises. "I was hardly 'all over you.' You had a mouse down your pants!"

Draco grinned devilishly at her, winking. "If 'Mouse' is what you want to call it, go right ahead. I'd prefer something different, personally. 'Mouse' is rather degrading, isn't it?"

Ginny's eyes were practically popping out of their sockets now and McGonagall interrupted sharply. "Mister Malfoy! We will not hear such…such vulgar language!"

Ginny turned to Professor Dumbledore. "That's not what we were doing at all, sir. We were in detention because of that git over there," she said, jerking her thumb towards Draco.

"Excuse me? You kneed me, if I remember correctly," Draco pointed out.

"And if you remember correctly, you'll also recall that you took one of my textbooks and refused to give it back!" Ginny said.

Draco sniggered. "I'd hardly call that tattered mass a _textbook_."

Ginny let out a frustrated growl and shouted, "You are so difficult!" before flopping back in her chair, her arms crossed as she glared at the wall, refusing to look Draco's way.

Professor Dumbledore blinked at the two students sitting in front of him. Draco was staring at the wall impassively though Dumbledore could see an angry, irritated twitch in his jaw and Ginny was glaring furiously at the wall, still blushing slightly. He glanced at Professor McGonagall, an eyebrow arched.

"They've been like this for two days now," she explained. "They've had two detentions already and when I returned to check on them the first day, Virginia Weasley had…hurt Draco Malfoy and Mister Malfoy had poured a bucket of soapy water on her head. The second day, I returned to find these two fighting."

Dumbledore nodded. "It seems to me that what we have here is a failure to cooperate and get along."

Draco snorted derisively. _'Anyone could have told us that,'_ he thought, and aloud, he drawled, "Really? You don't say…"

"I'm issuing detentions for the rest of the week for the both of you," Dumbledore announced. "I'll also deduct fifty points from each of your houses."

Professor McGonagall blinked at him. "That's it?" she asked. She was hoping Dumbledore would provide her with inspiration for new ideas and strategies, and instead, he gave them detentions, something she had already done. And the detentions hadn't even worked before so there was no guarantee they would work now.

"I'm not quite done, Minerva," he said, his eyes twinkling in amusement beneath his half moon spectacles. "You will both spend two days together."

Draco snorted derisively once again. "That's it?" he asked, echoing McGonagall's words.

"Two _entire _days. Day and night, forty-eight hours on the dot. On the first day, Mister Malfoy will accompany Miss Weasley everywhere. You will go to all of her classes with her, go to the library to study with her, eat at the Gryffindor house table, and even go into the Gryffindor common room with her. The only times when you do not have to accompany her is when she is using the restroom or taking a shower. Any other time, you two will be together," Dumbledore explained. Then he looked towards Ginny. "On the second day, you will be with Mister Malfoy for the entire day."

Ginny paled and Draco gaped at Dumbledore as if he were crazy.

"I have to go into the Slytherin common room?!" Ginny finally blurted. "That's like sending me to my death! Into the pits of Hell!"

Draco glared at Ginny. "I don't fancy the idea of skipping into the Gryffindor common room any more than you like the idea of coming into my common room."

"You can't be serious, professor," Ginny said.

"I am entirely serious, Miss Weasley. I hope that after this experience, you two will be able to at least refrain from fighting with each other. I don't expect you to come out of this experience as the best of friends,"-Draco sniggered here, imagining him and Ginny Weasley skipping through fields of wildflowers, hand in hand-"but I do hope that you two will learn to be civil to each other."

Professor McGonagall grinned inwardly. This was perfect! This was even better than she had hoped.

"You are dismissed," Dumbledore said, turning in his chair to signal that this conversation was over. Ginny and Draco followed Professor McGonagall out of the office and back down the stairs.

Once in the hall, McGonagall turned to Draco and Ginny and said, "For the two days that you'll be with each other, you will not be serving detention, but after that, I'll see you in my classroom after classes to finish your detentions." With that said, she set off down the hall, leaving Draco and Ginny.

Now, Ginny could have imagined it, but she could have sworn that she had heard a bit of happiness and excitement beneath McGonagall's stern words. Then Ginny shook her head. She had to be hearing things now.

"I don't believe this…" Ginny muttered. Two entire days with Draco Malfoy. Great. Just what she needed…

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Author's Note: Heh heh heh…I'm so evil to them . And no cliffie this time! Woo hoo! I'm so glad I had time to update today . I love this story. So what kind of trouble and/or awkward situations will McGonagall's specimens get into next? Draco's pretty difficult, isn't he? If you all have any questions or comments or anything, feel free to IM me. I don't bite, I promise. Well I might bite a little if I'm hungry. But they feed me here in this room of white, so no worries .

**Preview of the Next Chapter:**

**Ron's none too happy: **"What?! Malfoy's going to be in here tomorrow?! Dumbledore's gone crazy! That's…that's…cruel and unusual punishment!"

**Hermione tries to be reassuring…Ron doesn't help: **"It'll be fine, Gin," Hermione assured Ginny, patting Ginny's shoulder.

"F-f-fine?!" Ron spluttered. "He broke my arm!"

**Ron gives Ginny advice, the most important of which is: **"…And whatever you do, do not look him in the eye; he'll turn you to stone."

**Ginny shoots barbs:** "Some people like to sleep in the morning, Malfoy. But incarnates of evil don't need sleep, do they?"

**Draco only worsens her mood:** Draco smirked. "Sleeping doesn't give me time to get around to all the blood sucking."

**Not even breakfast time and Draco already hates his punishment: **"Ahh, Mister Malfoy, I believe there's a lovely seat for you right over beside Miss Weasley at the Gryffindor table," Dumbledore said pointedly.

"You're off your rocker if you think I'm about to go over and sit with a bunch of Gryffindors," Draco said vehemently.

More Crabbe stupidity but I think it's really funny so I won't give it away now.


	6. And all I can breathe is your life

**Author's Note:** Wow, sorry I didn't update sooner At first I didn't update because I had to cram for finals, then I had a lot of homework and more studying to do, and then my computer started being stupid on me. I've had computer troubles for the past week or two. Anyway, I think my computer's all better now so I decided I owed you guys an update. So yeah…here's an update. Thanks for being patient (well you might not have been patient but thanks for not letting me know that you were impatient ) I looked at the sun earlier today so I'm kinda still seeing spots. Apparently you're not supposed to look up at the sun?

Oh! By the way, I now have a mailing list for when I update this story. If you sign up for the list you'll get an email every time I update the story. It's an easy way to keep up with this story without checking everyday and finding that I haven't updated ;; If you look in my profile, there is a link to an anime forum that I created. At the bottom of the forum page, there's a place to sign up for the mailing list. I've never had a mailing list before so I can't guarantee that it'll work because I'm technologically impaired and it might take me a while to figure out how to work it. But once I figure out how to work it, you'll get emails when I update I had to put the sign-up on my forum because I couldn't think of any other place to put it ;; Anyway, so sign up for that if you're interested in getting email when I update.

**Disclaimer:** The GMMTBDM fund is still going. Any donations?

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Just a Theory

**Chapter 4**

Once in the common room, Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed up to Ginny, everyone asking at once about what had happened. Taking a seat in a squashy armchair by the fire, Ginny told them everything about her punishment.

"What?! Malfoy's going to be in here tomorrow?!" Ron asked when she had finished and Ginny nodded. "Dumbledore's gone crazy! That's…that's…cruel and unusual punishment! They outlawed that kind of punishment years ago!"

"And don't forget that Ginny will be in the Slytherin common room the day after that," Harry pointed out, and Ron paled.

"Ginny? In that place? We can't let her go there!" he insisted as he jumped to his feet. "I'm going to Dumbledore! He can't do this! He's insane! Out of his bloody mind!"

Hermione sighed and pulled Ron back into his seat. "We have no choice. Dumbledore said she had to. He won't change his mind just because we tell him to. We have to just accept his punishment for Ginny watch her while she's not in the Slytherin common room to make sure that Malfoy doesn't harm her," Hermione said.

"But he'll do something while we're not looking! He's a scummy bastard, Hermione! He's low and evil and…and evil! I'm going to Dumbledore!" Ron announced, jumping to his feet again.

"Ron, maybe Hermione's right. Dumbledore's not going to take away Ginny's punishment just because you don't like it. We'll have to trust him," Harry said.

"And besides, if Dumbledore thought that Ginny would be in danger, he wouldn't have given her this punishment," Hermione pointed out.

Ginny sighed. They were talking as if she weren't even there. But she was used to that by now. Standing up, Ginny headed up the spiral staircase to the girls' dormitories and stumbled to her bed, suddenly exhausted as she collapsed onto the four-poster without even bothering to change into her pajamas.

* * *

"Hey Ginny, wake up. You don't want to miss breakfast."

Ginny slowly opened her eyes and saw her fellow sixth year girls getting dressed and doing their hair to get ready for the day. Ginny was about to hop out of bed to get ready when she groaned, remembering the events of yesterday. Today was the day that she spent the entire day with Draco Malfoy.

"It's all his fault," she mumbled to herself, rolling out of her bed.

"What's that, Gin?" Stacey Cove asked, holding her brush in her hand.

"It's nothing," Ginny said, yawning and stretching her arms toward the ceiling.

After she had dressed and had brushed her teeth and her hair, Ginny slowly made her way down to the Gryffindor common room, dreading the undoubtedly long day ahead of her.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked up at her as she came down the stairs. Ron and Harry looked at her solemnly, almost pityingly, and Ginny nearly laughed. She was spending the day with Malfoy; she wasn't being sent to become a human sacrifice to some psycho cult. But then she bit down her laugh, remembering that spending two entire days with Malfoy _was_ like being sent to become a human sacrifice to some psycho cult.

Seeing the looks they were giving Ginny, Hermione glared at Harry and Ron.

"It'll be fine, Gin," Hermione assured Ginny, patting Ginny's shoulder.

"F-f-fine?!" Ron spluttered. "He broke my arm!"

Hermione glared over at Ron. "He did not break your arm, Ron."

"But not for lack of trying," Ron muttered darkly.

Hermione decided to ignore Ron and turned back to Ginny. "It'll be fine, I'm sure. Professor Dumbledore wouldn't have made you do this if he didn't think it would be good for the both of you."

"Why don't you just gather a Dumbledore-worshipping cult together and go off building shrines and temples to him already so that we can tell Gin the truth?" Ron asked Hermione sharply. Then he turned to Ginny. "Don't turn your back to him, he'll hex you while you're not looking. Keep your eyes on him all the time; make sure you can always clearly see what he's doing (who knows what he could be plotting to do while your back's turned); make sure you watch your food and drinks the entire time when he's nearby (he might slip some nasty potions into your food). And whatever you do," Ron concluded seriously, "do _not_ look him in the eye; he'll turn you to stone."

"Oh honestly!" Hermione cried in exasperation. "He's Malfoy, not the devil, Ron!"

"Malfoy, devil, what's the difference?" Ron demanded indignantly.

"Nah, Hermione's right, Ron," Harry said. "Ginny'll be fine. Malfoy wouldn't dare pull anything; Dumbledore'll probably be watching them the whole time to see that Ginny doesn't get hurt."

"But he won't be watching them at night or in the Slytherin common room!" Ron pointed out. He turned back to Ginny. "If those dirty Slytherins jump you or gang up on you, scream bloody murder, understand?"

"Ron! You're not helping!" Hermione said, her hands on her hips.

Now Ginny did laugh. "Don't worry Ron, I will watch him like a hawk and I won't look him in the eye."

Ron flushed angrily. "Are you poking fun at me now?"

"With good reason!" Hermione said huffily.

"Besides, you guys are forgetting that this is Malfoy's punishment too, not only mine. He doesn't like this any more than we do. Besides, you guys are talking about Malfoy hurting me; I think Malfoy should watch his back too," Ginny said, grinning impishly.

"See? Ginny is perfectly capable of taking care of herself," Hermione told Ron.

Ron sighed and then glared and shook his finger at Hermione. "But I still don't like it! One wrong move by Malfoy and I'm going straight for his throat!"

"You will do no such thing, Ronald Weasley!" Hermione said sternly, her hands on her hips. "If Malfoy puts a foot over the line, we'll go to Dumbledore."

"Only after I'm through with him…" Ron mumbled, though Hermione didn't appear to have heard him.

"Let's be off to breakfast then, shall we?" Hermione asked briskly.

"Yeah, we'll see you around, Gin," Harry said, making to head towards the portrait hole, but Hermione glared at him.

"Well…" Harry said hesitantly. "I suppose we could…walk with you down to the Great Hall…"

"No, no, you guys go ahead, I won't make you guys walk with me and Malfoy. I know you guys hate him even more than I do," Ginny said, waving them off.

Harry nodded quickly but Hermione glared at him again.

"I mean…are you sure?" Harry asked.

Ginny nodded.

"Well, you heard her," Harry said, and he and Ron made their way to the Fat Lady's portrait and left the common room.

"Honestly!" Hermione huffed, watching them leave. Then, to Ginny, she said, "You sure you don't want me to walk with you?"

Ginny smiled. "I'm sure. I'll be fine."

Hermione nodded and then left the common room as well. As soon as Hermione was gone, Ginny scowled. "This is all Malfoy's fault," she muttered to herself, climbing through the portrait hole. "He's such an ass…He should just go rot in Hell. This is all-"

"What's that, Weasley?"

Ginny groaned and turned to see Draco waiting for her. "It's nothing," she growled, brushing past him.

"It's about time you got out here," he scoffed, moving to walk beside her.

"Some people like to sleep in the morning, Malfoy," Ginny said, her voice falsely sweet. Then she glared at him. "But then again, incarnates of evil don't need sleep, do they?"

Draco smirked. "Sleeping doesn't give me time to get around to all the blood sucking." Then his eyes narrowed. "And let's get some things straight right now, shall we? Don't bother me and you might just come out of this all right."

"I have a better idea: you keep your mouth shut for the entire day and I let you keep all of your bones whole," Ginny retorted.

Draco sneered down at her. "I'll give you one better: if you-"

Draco got no farther since Ginny had marched away from him to sit at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. He began to stride over towards the Slytherin table when Dumbledore passed him.

"Ahh, Mister Malfoy, I believe there's a lovely seat for you right over beside Miss Weasley at the Gryffindor table," Dumbledore said pointedly.

"You're off your rocker if you think I'm about to go over and sit with a bunch of Gryffindors," Draco said vehemently.

"Well, as you can see, Mister Malfoy, I'm not sitting on my rocker at the moment so that would make me 'off my rocker,'" Dumbledore said, chuckling at his own little joke, a joke Draco didn't find amusing at all.

"You can't be serious," he stated simply.

"Oh, but I am, Mister Malfoy. If you remember correctly, this is part of your little punishment. Or perhaps I can come up with a different sort of punishment, if this one is not to your liking," Dumbledore suggested.

Draco studied the headmaster for a moment and realized that he probably wouldn't like the alternative punishment Dumbledore would come up with more than he didn't like the idea of sitting at the Gryffindor table.

_'I can't believe this is happening…'_ Draco thought to himself, scowling sourly as he stormed over to the Gryffindor table and sat beside Ginny. The entire hall fell silent at this. Draco glared at any Gryffindors who sent him curious, questioning glances and they all suddenly seemed very interested in the eggs on their plates ("Look! This one looks like a banana!" "I swear mine looks like Johnny Depp!").

"Why are you sitting here? Go sit with your cronies," Ginny commanded, looking around and hoping that no one saw Draco Malfoy sitting beside her at the table. Unfortunately, she realized that people would have had to be blind to miss Draco Malfoy at the Gryffindor table (she also didn't miss the fact that the whole hall was silent) and she sighed.

"The old bat wouldn't let me," Draco muttered angrily.

The other students, seeing Draco and Ginny glaring at each other and arguing, decided that things were semi-normal. Conversation slowly began again, almost cautiously as if they were testing the waters.

Up at the High Table, McGonagall caught Blaise Zabini's eye and Blaise nodded. Then he leaned over and whispered something to Vincent Crabbe and Greggory Goyle. Crabbe's eyes widened to the size of saucers (Goyle just stared at Blaise blankly) and he searched the Gryffindor table until his eyes found Draco Malfoy.

Jumping to his feet, Crabbe shouted, "Oi, Malfoy! What are you doin' at the Gryffindor table? And with the Weasley girl? Do you…f…fa…fan…fanatic her or somethin'?"

Blaise Zabini smacked his forehead in frustration and coughed, "Fancy!"

"Oops…I mean, do you fancy fanatic her or somethin'?" Crabbe corrected himself.

"Yeah!" Goyle felt the need to put in his two cents. Well, more like one and a half cents really. Okay, more like half of a half of a fourth of a sixteenth of a cent.

All of this was shouted across the Great Hall and many heads turned towards Ginny and Draco, where Draco had frozen and tensed and Ginny had choked on her waffle.

Ginny glanced around her in panic and then looked over at Draco, who looked cool and impassive as usual, but she saw that his jaw was clenched angrily.

_'And that, my colleagues, is what we know today to be called peer pressure. As you can see in this diagram, specimens A and B look extremely uncomfortable,'_ McGonagall thought, imagining herself standing behind a large podium in front of hundreds of world-famous psychology professors, giving them a lecture as reporters snapped photographs of her visual aids and charts and diagrams.

Here Dumbledore cleared his throat and got to his feet. "Perhaps now is a good time to explain this strange occurrence." He then proceeded to explain why Draco Malfoy was at the Gryffindor table and that on the next day, Ginny Weasley would be at the Slytherin table.

A chorus of 'Oh's!' and a few chuckles and sniggers sounded through the Great Hall and everyone returned to their breakfasts, now unconcerned about Draco sitting beside Ginny at the Gryffindor house table.

Vincent Crabbe, however, was still on his feet and seemed unsatisfied with Dumbledore's explanation. Or perhaps he just didn't understand or hear Professor Dumbledore, for not two seconds later, he shouted, "Well? Do you fantastic her?"

And once again, Goyle added in his half of a half of a fourth of a sixteenth of a cent: "Yeah!"

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**Author's Note:** Oh geez, I love Crabbe and Goyle Oh, and for the person that commented that only Crabbe was being stupid and Goyle seemed to be missing, there was Goyle's half of a half of a fourth of a sixteenth of a cent Hehehe…Anywho uhh…wow, I smell food, which reminds me that I'm kind of hungry…I didn't have breakfast yet. It's like…two o'clock too. Well anyway, do you all want a preview of the next chapter? Since you all aren't here to answer, I'll just put on in here

**Preview**

**Ginny and Draco go to her Potions class.**

**Professor Snape being…Professor Snape: **"Ahh, Draco, I've heard about this little punishment of yours and I must say that I pity your position. The punishment is beyond cruel and unusual…"

**Draco helps Ginny with her potion until he decides to make it explode: **"Three…two…" Draco began to count, smirking and Ginny glanced over at him questioningly, "…one."

**Draco panics, thinking the potion fumes made Ginny go insane: **"Draco really began to panic and grabbed the Potions textbook, flipping through the instructions as if to find a huge warning that read, 'WARNING: If this potion explodes, inhalation of the fumes may cause insanity'."

**Draco's attempt to make Ginny angry failed; he thinks he knows why: **"Maybe I wasn't smug or arrogant enough," Draco mumbled.

**And another argument between Ginny and Draco.**


	7. Cause sooner or later it's over

**Author's Note:** Hey you guys! Yes, despite popular belief, I **am** still alive And I'm back with an update! Seems like forever since I've updated All the usual excuses: had a lot to do, schoolwork, tests, projects, etc. I just got done with a pretty big test today. The sophomore class has been taking it all week. And this Wednesday, I'm taking my first AP test: AP World Studies. So right now, I should actually be studying for that because I'm so going to fail it as I am right now. I need to cram history facts into my head all weekend . It sucks. I should have decided to take it.

**Disclaimer:** All the usual stuff: I don't own the characters, I'm selectively borrowing, etc. etc.

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Just a Theory

**Chapter 7**

Ginny's first class of the day was Potions and she was truly dreading it. What would Professor Snape say when he saw Draco with her? He'd probably know _why_ he was with her as Dumbledore had undoubtedly told all of her professors about the punishment already so that they wouldn't be surprised when Draco Malfoy walked into the classroom. But would Snape think it was her fault that his prized pupil was being punished? Would he focus on her the most during the class because of that?

Professor Snape was grading papers at his desk and a few students were already in their seats when she entered the dungeon classroom, so Ginny crept to her seat, hoping that she'd go unnoticed by Snape at least until class began. Draco watched amusedly as Ginny continually glanced up at Professor Snape, panic in her eyes.

_'Like a scared little rabbit watching a hunter as it's wandering open fields…'_ he thought with amusement. Maybe this would end up being just a little bit of fun for him.

After the rest of the class had taken their seats, Snape got to his feet and moved to the front of the room, letting his eyes slowly travel over the class as if searching for the smallest detail to criticize someone about and take house points for, such as a shirt being un-tucked or a crooked tie. Or perhaps that was his way of intimidating the class; it certainly worked since half the class was shifting and fidgeting nervously in their seats. Draco saw a few students hurriedly straightening their tie or brushing lint off their robes.

His gaze finally landed on Ginny and Draco and Ginny flushed in embarrassment, sinking lower into her seat as if she could melt into the floor. Unfortunately, she wasn't that lucky and stayed solidly in her seat.

Snape's lips twitched slightly into an amused smirk. "Ahh, Draco, I've heard about this little punishment of yours and I must say that I pity your position. The punishment is beyond cruel and unusual," he said, his voice smooth and calm.

The Slytherin sixth years in the class snickered loudly and Ginny sank even lower in her seat. Draco predicted that if Ginny sank any lower, she would be laying on the dungeon floor.

Draco shrugged a shoulder. "It isn't so bad, professor."

Ginny turned towards him in shock, and smiled slightly, grateful that Draco was trying to help her.

Professor Snape raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" he asked simply, a sign for Draco to elaborate.

"Yes, it's not so bad…until she opens her mouth that is, or until I look at her, which I try to avoid, mind you," Draco said, smirking at Ginny. "And if I stay far enough away from her, I can hardly smell her."

Ginny's smile quickly transformed into a scowl and the sixth year Slytherins snickered again. Ginny's blush deepened and Snape patted Draco's shoulder (which, Ginny guessed, was Snape's way of beaming proudly) as he moved to check on the students in the back of the room.

Crossing her arms, Ginny glared at the chalkboard at the front of the room, refusing to look at the smug seventh year Slytherin sitting beside her. She decided to completely ignore his presence for the rest of that day. If that was possible, that is. It was rather hard to forget Draco Malfoy sitting beside you when your fellow sixth years kept whispering and pointing at him.

"Today you will be concocting a Sustaining Potion," Snape announced, and then sneered as he looked pointedly at a few students in particular and said, "or at least you'll be _trying _to. If brewed correctly, when lost in the forest, this potion will keep you from hunger and thirst, providing you with the proper nourishment; when you've lost all hope, this potion shall raise your spirits. It is useful in many ways."

"Write this down, you idiot," Draco hissed at her, pushing her quill, ink, and parchment towards her.

Ginny just glared at him and he shrugged indifferently. "Suit yourself," he whispered.

"Why aren't you writing all of this down?" Snape snapped suddenly as he looked around at the class.

Draco gave Ginny a look that clearly said, "I told you so," as she glared at him while taking the parchment, quill, and ink.

Ginny frowned as she read through the instructions in her open Potions textbook once more. Then she picked up two small, unmarked vials and was undecided as to which ingredient was the one she was supposed to use. She had recited "Eeny meeny miny mo" (A/N – How do you spell that anyway?) in her head and had decided upon the translucent blue liquid.

"Not that one. The other one," Draco said simply as he nonchalantly leaned his chair back on its two rear legs, twirling a quill in his fingers.

Ginny's eyes narrowed as she looked at him, the perfect picture of relaxation and calm. "Why should I believe you? I have no reason to," she said, unscrewing the lid from the vial containing the clear blue substance.

Draco shrugged. "You don't have to believe me but I was right last time."

Ginny paused for a moment. He had tried to help her before by telling her to write down the things Professor Snape was saying. She looked from Draco to the vial in her hands. Finally she growled in frustration and replaced the lid, grabbing the small jar with the translucent red liquid in it.

She unscrewed the lid and watched him for any indication that he was lying or tricking her, but he remained as calm and collected as ever; he wasn't even watching her and his attention was instead focused on the quill twirling in his fingers. She poured in two drops of the red substance and waited. The potion turned a turquoise color, just like the book said it was supposed to.

"Thanks," she mumbled and Draco smirked.

"What was that, Weasley? I didn't catch what you said," Draco said, mockingly leaning forward as if to hear her better.

"I said thanks," Ginny said, louder this time and Draco's smug smirk grew as he leaned back in his chair again and returned to twirling his quill.

"Aren't you even going to say 'you're welcome' or 'no problem' or something like that?" Ginny asked, becoming exasperated.

"No," he answered simply. "Just don't be such a dunderhead all the time and I won't have to give you all the answers."

Ginny growled. "A simple 'don't mention it' would do," she muttered. That was just like Draco Malfoy: help people one minute and then kick the legs out from under them the next. He always found a way to wiggle out of being nice and could worm his way out of any situation just by opening his mouth and using that whip-like tongue of his. It was like tempting a crocodile with an itty-bitty chicken drumstick: if you held it out to the crocodile, he'd take the drumstick but he'd take your whole arm with it. Maybe a leg too. Then you'd have only one arm and one leg and the crocodile would laugh at you, just to make you feel worse about losing an arm and a leg.

Snape walked by Ginny's table and studied her potion for long moments before simply saying, "Your tie's crooked, Weasley," before moving on to the next pair of students. That was his way of saying, "There's nothing wrong with your potion but I don't want to admit it because you're a Gryffindor."

Ginny gaped after him. That was the first time that Snape had ever passed by her without criticizing her potion. She shook her head in amazement. When she was just about to add a handful of some kind of leaf, Draco interrupted her.

"That's too much," he said.

She put half of the handful back in the container and he nodded.

"Thanks," she said, and again, he said nothing.

Ginny was getting excited; she was almost done with her potion and, with Draco's help, she just might get top marks on this potion. She had rarely ever gotten top marks, for Snape had always found something wrong with her potions, but this time, he wouldn't be able to find a mistake.

"That's not enough," Draco said suddenly, cutting through her thoughts.

Ginny glanced down at the teaspoon of yellowish liquid she was holding and picked up a tablespoon, holding it up for his approval and he nodded. She scooped up a tablespoon of the yellow liquid and dumped it into her potion.

"Three…two…" Draco began to count, smirking and Ginny glanced over at him questioningly, "…one."

Suddenly, her potion exploded and all the heads in the classroom turned to see who had been stupid enough to make their potion explode. Ginny gaped down at the remains of the potion in shock. Her first inclination was to scream in frustration and wring Draco's neck but then she did something that Draco was totally unprepared for: she threw her head back and laughed.

Draco was so surprised that he jumped and fell backwards in his chair, seeing as it was still precariously balanced on only two legs. Still Ginny laughed.

_'Good gods! She's going insane! Are the fumes from that explosion poisonous? Toxic?' _Draco thought, panicked slightly, climbing to his feet again and brushing off his robes.

When Ginny continued to laugh even when a furious Snape came to stand in front of her, Draco really began to panic and grabbed the Potions textbook, flipping through the instructions as if to find a huge warning that read, "WARNING: If this potion explodes, inhalation of the fumes may cause insanity" or something to that effect but he found no such warning.

He gaped at Ginny as she continued to laugh and Snape glanced over at him as if for an explanation.

"I don't know what happened professor!" Draco insisted, almost honestly. He had caused the potion to explode, but he didn't know what happened after the explosion to make Ginny go insane.

"You will re-do this potion correctly in detention with me after classes today. And twenty points from Gryffindor for your clumsiness," Snape snapped.

Ginny nodded, trying to stop laughing so sounds along the lines of snorting were coming from her.

When Potions class was over, Ginny left the classroom and Draco was almost afraid to walk near her for fear of another mood swing. Maybe the laughter was the foreplay of beating him to a pulp.

"Weasley?" he asked as cautiously as a Malfoy could be without losing the superior attitude.

"That was good, Malfoy. I must say that I was totally unprepared for that. Cheers," she said, grinning.

Draco gaped at her before realizing that Malfoys didn't let their mouths hang open like that so he immediately closed his mouth. But he was still in shock.

"Ex-excuse me?" he asked, thinking he hadn't heard right.

"I said that that was good. Very good indeed, lowering my guard by giving me a few right answers and then hitting me with a wrong answer when it mattered most. I didn't even see it coming," she said.

Then he frowned. "I'm losing my touch," he muttered, for she should have been raving mad right about now, not congratulating and praising him! That just wasn't supposed to happen.

"Fred and George would have enjoyed that one, I think," Ginny said, chuckling.

Draco shook his head, still stunned. She was supposed to be in a rage and threatening to hex him into next Tuesday, not being happy! What had he done wrong?

Draco went through his mental checklist.

_1) __Pretend to be helping her: check_

_2) __Continue to help her until she follows the directions without question: check_

_3) __Give her the wrong instructions right at the end of the potion: check_

_4) __Smirk and be smug and arrogant about it until she goes into a rage: no check_

"Maybe I wasn't smug or arrogant enough," Draco mumbled.

"What's that?" Ginny asked.

"Nothing."

"I hope you know this means war though," Ginny said.

"I thought you said it was a good one and you weren't angry."

"I did say it was good. I didn't say that Fred and George didn't teach me the concept of revenge," Ginny said, grinning impishly.

"Hey Gin, how you holding up?" Ron asked, walking up to her, Hermione and Harry following close behind.

"Just fine, Ron," Ginny answered, quite honestly, because, except for his few comments in Potions and the fact that he made her potion explode, Draco Malfoy had almost-_almost,_ mind you-tolerable, and that was a big step for him. "I do have detention with Snape today though," she said, frowning.

"Oh, that's harsh. You'd think being stuck with Malfoy'd be punishment enough for a lifetime," Ron said. "Did he give you detention for breathing?"

"Honestly, Ron, Professor Snape would not give out detention without good reason," Hermione said, frowning.

"Of course he does, he does it all the time!" Ron insisted.

"Hermione's right, Ron, I deserved it. I made a potion explode," Ginny said, grinning sheepishly. Draco raised an eyebrow. Why didn't she tell them that he made it explode? In all honesty, he did make it explode, not her.

"Oh."

Draco smirked. The four of them were deliberately ignoring him, so he did the only right thing to do in a situation such as that: he made his presence known. He made a great show of sniffing the air and wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"What is that god-awful stench?" he asked, clearly repulsed. Then he looked at Ron, Harry, and Hermione as if noticing that they were there for the first time. "Oh…" he sneered.

Ginny could see that Ron was getting angry and Harry had his hand in his robe pocket, probably gripping his wand. Ginny glared at Draco, who smiled back innocently, and then she turned back to Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

"I'll talk to you guys at lunch, okay?" Ginny said.

Hermione nodded and she, Harry, and Ron, Harry and Ron glaring at Draco over their shoulders, continued down the hall, heading towards their Charms class while Ginny stomped off in the opposite direction. It took a moment for it to register in Draco's mind that she had left and he immediately walked quickly (Malfoys never ran through the halls, especially if they were trying to catch up to a Weasley) to catch up to her.

"Why can't you ever be nice?! Even simply being _tolerable_ would be excellent!" Ginny shouted.

"But being intolerable is too much fun," Draco drawled, smirking.

"How do you ever expect to have friends if you're always going to be the horrible person you are now? Get married? Have children?" Ginny asked.

"Well Crabbe and Goyle are all the company I could possibly need."

Ginny snorted. "They grunt and nod. That's hardly grounds for riveting conversations."

"And I'm rich enough and devastatingly good-looking enough so any woman in her right mind would want to marry me."

"I meant getting married to a woman you love and who loves you back, not buying a wife or owl-ordering one. She's hardly a wife if you pay her; she's more like a prostitute," Ginny pointed out.

"And as for having children, what you do is first you need a male and a female and then they need to-" Draco began to explain smugly.

"I didn't mean _how_ you're going to have children!" Ginny interrupted. "I mean how do you expect them to love you, respect you, look up to you? Are you planning on living your life alone?"

Draco snorted derisively. "I'm hardly alone. I have-"

"Your parents?" Ginny filled in. "You think having parents makes you not alone? Do you eat dinner with them every night? Did your mother tuck you in at night when you were little? Did your father read you bedtime stories?"

"I wasn't going to say my parents. I was going to say-"

Ginny interrupted again. "Your friends? Crabbe and Goyle? They're more like cronies! Do you pay them to be your bodyguards? Hmm? I suppose Zabini could be considered your friend, but he's the only one! How do you expect to have any friends other than Zabini if you're altogether an intolerable bastard and everyone's afraid of you? And don't say they're not afraid of you, because they are! Why are they afraid? Because you-" Ginny stopped short, thinking she might have gone too far again. "Sorry…I…went too far again. I've…got to get to Herbology," Ginny mumbled, hurrying down the hall.

"Idiot…doesn't she remember that I'm coming too?" Draco muttered to himself as he followed her.

_'Are mothers supposed to tuck children into bed?'_ Draco wondered. _'What kind of books would a father read to his children? Arrgh, just forget it. It doesn't matter; I don't care. Ginny's words mean nothing to me. I mean Weasley's. Damn it all…'_

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**Author's Note:** Sorry guys, still no real Draco/Ginny action. I just think their characters would go slowly about the romance thing so there isn't any "action" yet. I haven't planned all the next chapters yet so I don't know when the action's coming. Soon though.


	8. I just don't want to miss you tonight

**Author's Note:** Hey guys! I'm back and with a whomping ten-page chapter! That's nearly double the length of my usual chapters, wee! Just thought I'd give you all an uber long chapter to make up for all my slow update. The future chapters probably won't be this long. But maybe I will keep them this long. I don't know. If I keep all of them this long, I will probably be even slower at updating as I like to read over my chapters a lot.

I'm sorry it took so long to update. My computer died on me (fried motherboard ) so I didn't have my computer for a while. I did have access to the internet using my dad's computer but all of my chapters are saved on this computer. And, luckily, my hardrive was safe, so I have a brand new computer, AND I get to keep all my stuff! . And I would have had this posted before my computer died, but I sent the chapter to my beta and she never sent it back. If she had sent it back, I would have had the chapter on my dad's computer so I could have posted it. I don't know if she just never got it, or what.

Oh, and you should all check out one of my Draco/Ginny one-shot fics. I usually don't post my one-shots but I posted that one because I really like it. So go check that one out; it's gotten some good reviews and I'm proud of it . It's called "Finding Me and Finding You."

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Harry Potter characters, nope nope.

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Just a Theory

**Chapter 8**

Ginny sighed, entering the Herbology greenhouse and taking her usual seat. '_I went too far again, I bet…Why do I expect him to be tolerable when I give him just about as much crap as he gives me? I've got to learn to keep my mouth shut. He'll-'_

Ginny flushed when Draco entered the greenhouse and sat beside her.

__

'Oh no! I forgot he has to come to class with me! Crap! He's probably furious…'

Ginny thought, glancing sidelong at him as if to gauge his temper. He saw her looking at him though, and smirked.

Ginny sighed inwardly. At least he seemed to be normal.

Ginny and Draco had no misadventures in Herbology except for Ginny "accidentally" spilling mud on Draco's shoes (which she apologized for profusely) and her fellow sixth years seemed to already be accustomed to Draco's presence since there weren't as many whispers and glances their way.

"Time for Transfiguration!" Ginny happily announced as she skipped out of the greenhouse. Then she froze at a sudden thought: Professor McGonagall. _'I'm probably not at the top of her favorites list right now,'_ Ginny thought. _'She'll probably ignore me all class period or target me the whole time. Great. Now I have both Snape and McGonagall on my back in class all the time. And McGonagall's my own head of house! She likes all Gryffindors. So I must be the black sheep of Gryffindor. Maybe I really should have been in Slytherin, just like the Sorting Hat said. If I-'_

"WEASLEY!"

Ginny jumped, unceremoniously yanked out of her thoughts. "Hn?"

"Good gods, you're deaf as well as daft. You just walked past the Transfiguration room," Draco said, pointing to the door she had just walked past.

"Oh…right…" Ginny mumbled, walking into the classroom. She sank into her seat, trying to get as low as possible.

Draco eyed her questioningly. "What are you doing?"

"McGonagall's probably still angry with me. She'll probably target me all class period, just like Snape," Ginny said forlornly.

"No chance, McGonagall favors all the Gryffindors. You shouldn't worry about it; she's probably blaming me for the whole thing anyway," Draco said nonchalantly as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

Ginny smiled and then frowned, glancing over at him. Did Draco Malfoy just try to reassure her?

"Did you…did you just be nice?" Ginny asked, grinning.

"What?" Draco asked, nearly falling out of his chair in surprise. He quickly regained his composure and snorted derisively. "Of course not. Why would I be nice to anyone? Especially a Gryffindor and a Weasley at that. That word's not even in my vocabulary."

Ginny smirked. "Whatever you say, Malfoy. But thanks."

Before Draco could say anything, Professor McGonagall walked into the classroom. She surveyed the class sternly over her spectacles.

"Today you will be transfiguring a rock into any animal you choose. As you all know, transfiguring an inanimate object into a living, breathing thing is more difficult than transfiguring a live object into an inanimate one or an inanimate object into a different inanimate object," Professor McGonagall announced. She waved her wand and rocks appeared on the table in front of all the students. "You have until five minutes before class is over so I will have time to grade them. You may begin."

"Hmm…" Ginny murmured, trying to decide what to transform her rock into. A rabbit? A cat?

"Miss Weasley," McGonagall called from where she was helping Eliza Duncy. Eliza had never been very good at transfiguration and her rock had exploded. "Please go into the storage closet and bring me a first year transfiguration book."

Ginny nodded and went to the storage closet.

Draco vacillated. Should he go with her since his punishment was to go everywhere with her? He certainly didn't want Dumbledore to find out that he wasn't doing what he said; he'd probably make Draco spend another day with Ginny. Besides, it wasn't very amusing to watch the sixth years try to transform their rocks into animals; none of them were doing very well. Whatever was in the storage closet was probably more interesting than the sixth years' rocks.

Draco sighed inwardly, standing up and heading into the storage closet.

McGonagall grinned inwardly, waving her wand behind her back so that none of the students could see. The closet door swung shut. _'Oh…dear me…I do believe that closet door is locked! Oh…fancy that…'_ McGonagall thought happily.

McGonagall heard Ginny and Draco banging on the door, shouting for someone to let them out. "Students, if you want your rocks to transform faster, shout the spell louder!" McGonagall quickly said.

All of the students raised their voices, drowning out the sound of Ginny and Draco's shouting and pounding. McGonagall grinned, moving to help another student.

"No one's coming!" Ginny said, panicked.

"They're all shouting. Damn!" Draco cursed. "There's no way they can hear us now!"

"Argh! This is all your fault!" Ginny insisted, glancing around the closet in panic. It was rather small and, while she could still make out objects and see things a bit, the light was really bad.

"What? How the hell do you figure that?" Draco asked incredulously.

"Because…because…" Ginny said, scrambling for a reason.

"Because it's easier to blame me than yourself?" Draco supplied angrily.

Ginny's shoulders slumped and she looked down at the ground. He was right. She was only blaming him because it was easier than saying she had anything to do with putting them in this punishment. Perhaps for the first time since she had first met him, Ginny realized that Draco Malfoy was human. Sure, she had always known he was human, human…but now she realized that he was _human_. A living, breathing, _feeling_ human. He was hurt and angry when she had thrown those harsh words about his father at him. He _felt_ when she said those words. She had hurt Draco Malfoy's _feelings_ and she had just done it again. It was a very strange realization. Was it possible for Draco Malfoy to have feelings?

__

'Yeah…I guess it is…'

she thought.

"Yeah…sorry," she murmured. _'For everything,'_ she silently added.

Draco shrugged, leaning against the door. "I couldn't care less, Weasley. Blame me all you want. I don't give a rat's ass what you think."

Ginny studied him for a moment, her head cocked to the side thoughtfully. "Why do you not care? _How_ can you not care?"

"It's easy, I just don't, Weasley," Draco answered shortly.

Ginny watched him for a moment and then shook her head slowly. "You do, you have to. Everyone does. Everyone wants to be loved, to fit in, to not be alone. It's human nature."

"Do I seem like 'everyone' to you, Weasley?" Draco snapped, angry at the direction this conversation had turned. He didn't like where this conversation was going and wanted to squelch it as soon as possible. He had no desire to pour out his innermost emotions to a Weasley.

"No…but do you really like being alone?" Ginny asked.

"Everyone's alone. You're born alone and you die alone. That's just the way it is," Draco said bitterly.

"But you're not. You're parents are there when you're born. The doctors are there. Sometimes even relatives are there. You die with your spouse. People who have chosen to live alone, die alone, but that's entirely because of their choices in life," Ginny insisted. She didn't know why she was pushing the matter; it wasn't like she cared what Draco Malfoy thought. But for some reason she really wanted him to understand, to hear her, to believe her. She wanted him to realize that he was a _feeling_ person, just as she had just realized it. He thought that he didn't care, but she knew he did. She wanted him to realize it.

"Those are nothing but words and hopes and dreams. You'll be squashed in the real world, Weasley. Dreams and naïve hopes and words don't mean shit out there. Out there, you're alone and probably always will be."

Ginny smiled sadly, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself. "I guess they are just naïve dreams and hopes…but…I think naïve dreaming and hoping is better than knowing you're going to be alone forever, don't you think?"

"No, naïve dreams just give you false hope. You'll never face reality, and reality is all there is. False hope will do nothing for you except make you believe there's a chance for something other than reality," Draco said, his face impassive.

"Fine, but all the same, I think I'll continue with my naïve hopes and dreams," Ginny said, smiling. Then she grinned. "But, then again, incarnates of the devil don't dream, do they?"

Draco smirked. "Dreaming doesn't give me time for all the soul purchasing. Is yours for sale? It's the perfect blend of naïveté and innocence."

"What are you willing to give me in return for it?" Ginny asked, grinning impishly.

Draco blinked at her. _'Did Weasley just…did she just…was she…flirting?'_

Ginny's eyes widened in horror. _'I just…I just…flirted! With Malfoy! Bloody hell!' _To correct herself, she hurriedly said, "Not that it's for sale anyway, of course."

Draco smirked as he sauntered towards her. _'Heh, you're not getting off that easily, Weasley.'_

Ginny backed away a step everytime he took one forward, but soon she was backed up against the wall.

__

'Oh gods…he's coming closer. No, don't get any closer. Crap, he's…he's…he's doing the sexy grin thing!'

Ginny thought, panicking.

_'No, don't be stupid, Ginny. That's the same arrogant smirk he always wears. Wait…you just called it sexy! Eww! No! He's corrupting your mind! Soon you'll be smoking and stealing broomsticks and robbing banks and smuggling illegal drugs into Britain! He's corrupted you!'_

Ginny's thoughts were obviously becoming more and more eccentric with everything step Draco took towards her. Soon he was right in front of her, mere inches away and Ginny froze like a rabbit backed into a corner by a bunch of hunting dogs.

He trailed a finger up and down her arm as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Are you sure? I'm sure we could work something out, right? There's got to be _something_ you want for that soul of yours…' he drawled.

__

'My arm…it's…tingling. It's warm and tingly-like…someone hates me up there…'

Ginny thought.

She was blushing profusely and she turned her head to the side, refusing to look at him. "Uhm…yes-I mean no! T-that is…there's…No, I don't think there's…anything…"

"Are you sure?" he asked, smirking as his finger slid to move along the curve of her waist. _'She has a nice body…'_ Draco thought absentmindedly. Then he mentally winced. _'Good gods, being trapped in this closet is suffocating your mind! It's poisoning it! Soon…you'll be picturing…Neville Longbottom…in sexy red lingerie chained to your bed!'_ Draco wrinkled his nose in disgust, all dirty thoughts about Ginny completely leaving his head. _'Oh gross…now that was uncalled for, Draco. Why do you do that to your mind? You know that image is never going to leave, right? Although Ginny in red lingerie chained to-No! Stop! Stop!'_

Ginny nodded. "I-I'm p-positive."

Draco shrugged as he stepped away. "Suit yourself. One less soul for me, I suppose."

Ginny felt so bereft that his hands had left her that, before she could think about it, she shouted, "Yes! There…" Draco raised an eyebrow in amusement as he smirked and Ginny paused, catching herself. "I mean…there isn't."

Draco smirked. _'Oh…that was fun…Now about that red lingerie and the-No! Someone's gotta get me out of this broom closet soon…'_

"Hey Mal-" Ginny began, but stopped abruptly when light poured into the storage closet.

Ginny blinked up at the figure silhouetted in the doorway. When her eyes became adjusted to the light, she saw that it was Professor McGonagall.

"Have you guys been in this closet the whole time? Dear me, why didn't you shout for help? Class is over," McGonagall said.

"We tried shouting but you couldn't hear us over the class's shouting," Ginny explained, stepping out of the closet when McGonagall stepped aside to let them out.

"Terribly sorry for not noticing you two were gone sooner," McGonagall said.

"It's fine, professor," Ginny said, slinging her book bag over her shoulder. "See you tomorrow, professor," Ginny called before leaving the class, Draco following.

Once outside the door, Ginny cursed.

"My, my Weasley, what foul language. Your mother should wash your mouth with soap," Draco drawled.

"Divination's next," Ginny groaned. "I _hate_ that class. She's been predicting that I'll have a 'great mission' to accomplish ever since I entered that class. I mean, seriously, what 'great mission' could I possibly have in life? I'm the youngest of six children. Bill and Charlie and Percy were prefects and head boy and got high marks in all their classes, Fred and George are living their dreams by running their successful joke shop, Ron's on his way to accomplishing _something, _he's already been in on all of Harry's 'heroic' adventures, so everyone knows he'll do something. So what's left for the littlest Weasley? Absolutely nothing. Always getting shoved aside and ignored and-" Ginny froze. She had gone much too far. She had been talking to Draco Malfoy like he was…a _friend_. And he certainly wasn't a friend. He didn't even deserve to be considered an acquaintance.

She sucked in a breath, just waiting for him to burst into laughter. But laughter never came; Draco continued walking as if he hadn't heard her and Ginny let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

But Draco really had heard her; he just didn't know what to say. No one had ever told him anything truly personal before and he just couldn't find any words. So he did the only think he could think of: he just kept walking and pretended like he didn't hear her.

He knew he should have probably said something, anything…but he couldn't find anything to say.

Ginny inaudibly breathed a sigh of relief. So he hadn't really been paying attention. _'Figures,'_ Ginny scoffed. _'What would Malfoy want to listen to me for? Nothing I say is important to him.'_

Ginny and Draco climbed up to the Divinations tower.

"Damn…didn't think I'd ever be coming back up here," Draco muttered as he entered the small, stuffy room. The room smelled strongly of cinnamon and lavender incense and Draco wrinkled his nose.

"Take a seat class…" Trelawney said in her usual mysterious and mystical voice. "Today you shall be reading palms so find yourself a partner."

Ginny turned to Draco. "I suppose we should be partners, huh?"

"As much as I don't like it, yes, I suppose we should."

The class opened their books to the section on palm reading and began reading each other's palms while Professor Trelawney wandered around, correcting students as she walked by.

"Uhm…" Ginny said, examining Draco's hand. She pointed to a line. "I think that's your life line? Maybe? Oh wait…maybe that's your heart line."

"Are you daft, Weasley? That's obviously the destiny line," Draco said, pointing to an image in the textbook.

"Oh…right…" Ginny said, peering closely at his hand. Then she looked at the textbook. "Three wives and four hundred and forty-three kids?"

"What?!" Draco asked, nearly falling out of his chair. He grabbed the book from her. "Weasley! You're looking at the wrong picture!" he said, turning the page and handing the textbook back to her.

"Oh…" Ginny said, laughing sheepishly. "Right…well…one wife. One kid. No doubt an owl-order bride," she said, skimming the page.

"What? An owl-order bride?" Draco asked, grabbing the textbook again. "It doesn't say anything about owl-order brides here!"

Ginny laughed. "I know, but I didn't say it did. I said that I figured it would be a owl-order bride."

"Hah…that's hilarious, Weasley. Now finish this damn palm reading," he said, shoving the book back towards her.

"Fine," Ginny huffed, leaning back over his hand. "Well, you're in luck, Malfoy. Looks like there's love in store for you. Well on your part anyway. Nothing says she," then Ginny grinned devilishly and added, "or _he_ will love you back."

"Hah, you're a riot. Now hurry the hell up with the palm reading before you kill me," Draco drawled.

"Fine, fine…well…your fortune line says you'll go bankrupt and you'll dress in rags and live in a cardboard box in some small dirty alleyway in Diagon Alley. Hmm…and it looks like you'll have money once again when you decide to start selling your body on street corners. And after that…you'll inherit a small fortune but you'll give up secular desires and instead donate all of your money to the poor and become a wandering monk to concentrate on spiritual things and spiritual healing," Ginny said, looking from Draco's hand to the open textbook. "But unfortunately you'll die young. Looks like around age twenty-three."

"What the hell?!" Draco shouted loudly, causing many heads in the class to turn his way curiously. He ignored them and grabbed the book. "I'll give my money away to become a damn _monk_?!"

"_Traveling_ monk," Ginny corrected. "And before that you'll go bankrupt and live in a box in an alley," she reminded him.

"What?!" he asked, flipping through the textbook. Then he glared at Ginny, who had burst into laughter. "It doesn't say anything like that in here! Bloody hell, Weasley!"

"Oh gods, you should have seen your face," Ginny said between peals of laughter. "Absolutely priceless…What I wouldn't give to have taken a picture of that!"

"Hey Gin, here you go," Colin called, passing her a photograph. Then he patted his camera, grinning. "I don't go anywhere without it, you know."

Ginny looked at the picture and burst into more laughter. Draco scowled and made to grab the picture out of her hands, but she hurriedly stuffed it down her shirt and stuck her tongue out at him.

"No way, I'm keeping it!" Ginny insisted.

"If you don't think I'll reach into there to get that picture, you're wrong," Draco warned.

"You gonna get the picture right in the middle of this class?" Ginny asked and Draco looked around to find the rest of the class staring at them.

Draco scowled. "I will get the picture, sooner or later, Weasley, and I'll burn it."

"That's all right. By then, I'm sure I'll have made copies," Ginny said, grinning.

Draco smirked and held up his wand. "How about I burn the picture right now?"

Ginny snorted. "You can't burn it now. It's down my-" Then her eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

"Burn your shirt right along with the picture? Do you really want to bet the few knuts your family has saved up that I wouldn't?" Draco drawled, twirling his wand.

Ginny growled slightly as she pulled the picture out and handed it to him. "One of these days, Malfoy, _I'll_ have the upper hand in a situation, not you."

Draco smirked, taking the picture. "Are you sure it'll be any day when I'm still living? Doesn't seem like it to me."

"I will! You just watch," Ginny insisted, pulling the Divination textbook towards her to finish studying.

"Ahh, Miss Weasley…" Trelawney droned in her mysterious voice as she wafted towards Ginny's table. "Miss Weasley…your great, wondrous mission is now…"

Ginny jumped. "Ex-excuse me, professor?"

"Your mission I have foreseen: it is now," Professor Trelawney clarified without really clarifying anything. She had a knack for that sort of thing: not truly clarifying something she was clarifying.

"Uhh…right! I figured that out professor by…uhh…reading it in the stars last night," Ginny answered, forcing a smile.

Professor Trelawney smiled. "Very good, dear," and then she wafted away towards another table.

Ginny gave her back a puzzled stare and then she leaned towards Draco. "Is my 'great mission' reading your palm?" she whispered.

Draco snorted derisively. "Reading palms is probably all she thinks you can do. So I suppose it is your 'great mission.' But you were reading it all wrong anyway, so I guess you fail."

Ginny scowled at Draco. Then she laughed. She was beginning to find Draco's comments more funny than insulting or offensive.

Draco stared at her and then massaged his temples. "I'm losing my touch!"

Ginny jumped when Professor Trelawney's head suddenly appeared over her shoulder to say, "Your great mission is now!"

"Uhh…r-right!" Ginny said, laughing nervously. She breathed a sigh of relief when Professor Trelawney once again floated away.

"Geez! I thought I'd never get out of that place!" Ginny said as she and Draco made their way towards the Great Hall for lunch.

"You're telling me! I forgot how horrible that damn Divination room was. Not to mention how much of a waste of time that class was altogether," Draco muttered.

"Yeah…I shouldn't have taken it. Maybe taken Arithmancy instead?" Ginny wondered. Then she paused, glancing sidelong at Draco. _'Good gods…we're having a decent conversation…It feels…odd…'_

"Arithmancy's better than Divination. Divination's a load of bull. Arithmancy's something you can really actually use," he said, walking into the Great Hall.

"I don't think Divination's all a load of bull," Ginny replied, taking a seat at the Gryffindor house table.

"Come off it. You can't mean to say that you actually believe that fortune-telling crap Trelawney feeds you in there," Draco said, snorting derisively.

"You don't believe in Fate and destiny?" Ginny asked.

"Not even. People make their own destinies. I believe I'm the only one that can control my future and not some stupid stars or lines on my hand," Draco answered firmly.

"But it's kind of nice to believe that people have certain things that they're meant to experience or certain people they're meant to meet in life."

"Of course it's a nice feeling. That is, if you like to feel like you can't control your own life," Draco retorted.

"Some people really don't have much control over their lives though. Parents make you do things, other people make you do things. When that happens, it's nice to believe that you're meant to live your life a certain way and that you're doing exactly what was preordained for you."

"Things like Fate and destiny just aren't practical. People can change their lives however they want. If parents are making someone do things they don't want to do, they could run away. They could go to relatives. Anything like that."

"But maybe, in the end, they were destined to run away to relatives so, in fact, they were doing just what Fate wanted them to do," Ginny insisted, taking a bite out of her sandwich.

Draco shook his head. "People control their lives and that's that."

"But-" Ginny began to protest but abruptly broke off as she noticed that many heads in the Great Hall were turned their way.

Draco glanced at her questioningly, about to ask why she had stopped in the middle of her sentence when he, too, noticed the curious stares they were receiving. Many of the students were whispering to each other.

"Whoa…I think they were just having a decent conversation."

"A Weasley and a Malfoy?"

"No way, I'll bet we heard wrong and he was really threatening to kill her."

"No, I heard right! I have good ears! It was a conversation! A real one!"

"There must be something wrong."

"Maybe Dumbledore slipped a sedative potion into their drinks?"

"I don't think he'd do that."

"Well how else do you explain it?"

"I heard that Susan, Nathan's girlfriend, is pregnant with William's child and she's so ashamed that she's going to sell everything she owns and run off to the states! And her parents kicked her out of the house! And Nathan's joining a traveling circus!"

"Who cares?! Malfoy and Weasley are over there _talking!_"

"I think it's the end of the world!"

"Maybe a parallel universe?"

"I'm not dreaming, right? Naw, I can't be. All my dreams have Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in them! And my dream would _not_ have Ethan Marx staring at me from the Ravenclaw table in it."

Up at the head table, McGonagall hid her pleased smile by putting her goblet of pumpkin juice to her lips. _'This is perfect! I'll have that degree in no time!'_ Professor Dumbledore could not have given her specimens a more perfect punishment to help her experiment.

At the Gryffindor table, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were three of the many people staring Draco and Ginny's way.

"Ahh…Gin?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Harry?"

"Uhm…What are you doing?"

"Well, I was just saying to Dra-Malfoy that-"

"We were having a conversation that, lo and behold, didn't concern Harry Potter. Did you know such a thing existed, Potter? Of course you didn't, so I hope you're taking notes because this should be a great learning experience for you," Draco drawled smugly.

"Dumbledore should've put a longer lasting sedative in their pumpkin juice," a student muttered to his friend.

"Bugger off, Malfoy! We weren't talking to you!" Ron snapped, getting red in the face.

"Au contraire, Weasley. I believe the littlest weasel here was talking to me. And you so rudely interrupted us," Draco replied coolly.

"Yeah, Ron. I'm sorry but we were talking and you kind of interrupted a little," Ginny said, hoping Ron wouldn't get angry.

Ginny could've sworn that she saw Ron twitch ever so slightly before he turned to Draco. "You've pulled her on to your side!" he accused.

"And what side, pray tell, is that?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Your side of…of…" Ron said, groping for the right word, "…Evil!"

"Ron, I'm not on a side! We were talking until you interrupted. Please just leave us be so we can finish our conversation," Ginny said, sighing in exasperation.

"B-b-but…" Ron spluttered angrily.

"Oh honestly! Ginny's right! She was doing just fine without your ever-so-helpful 'aid,' Ronald Weasley," Hermione said, huffily.

"But-" Ron protested.

"But nothing, eat your carrots," Hermione said with a note of finality.

Ron grumbled but returned to his lunch and ate his carrots.

After lunch, Ginny's history of magic class, Charms class, and Muggle studies class went by without any misadventures. Compared to the first half of her day, Ginny found the last half incredibly boring.

"I have detention with Snape now," Ginny said as she and Draco left the Muggle studies classroom.

"I don't want to go to detention. I'll just tell Snape that I had to get some research from the library for something and you had to come with me," Draco drawled lazily.

"Oh…okay." Ginny wasn't about to argue this one. She didn't want to go to detention with Snape either. Ginny rocked back and forth on her heels as she and Draco just stood in the hall. "So…uhm…what now?"

Draco shrugged a shoulder indifferently. "What do you usually do after classes? Can't be anything too interesting…you're a Gryffindor."

Ginny ignored his derisive statement about Gryffindors and shrugged as well. "I normally hang out with my friends or go to the library to study."

Draco sighed inwardly, rolling his eyes. "Well let's go to the dungeons. I need some Slytherin air or I'll suffocate. I've been exposed to Gryffindors much longer than is safe." With that said, he strode swiftly down the hall towards the entrance hall.

Ginny gaped after him and then ran to catch up. "Are you kidding?! I'm not going down there! No way, no how! I'm not setting one foot in there!"

Draco scoffed. "Come off it, there's nothing wrong with the dungeons. I've been around Gryffindors all day and I'm still alive. Barely, but still alive."

"No, I'll get…eaten or something! They'll…they'll suck my blood!"

Draco chuckled. "No, no, that's only at night, Weasley."

Ginny smirked. "Well _I'm_ not going down there and today you're supposed to stay with me, _wherever_ I go. Or _don't _go. And I'm not going down there." Then she turned and began walking the other direction down the hall. She grinned to herself. _'Haha, take that, you bastard. For once, I have the upper hand.'_

"Hey, Weasley!" Draco called. When she ignored him and kept walking, he growled slightly to himself. Then he smirked. There was no way that he was going to let her get away with this. He wanted to go to the dungeons and what he wanted, he always got.

He quickly and silently jogged up behind her and then scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

"Malfoy! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Ginny asked, placing her hands against his back and pushing herself up slightly so that she could see his profile: he was smirking. Ginny growled and pounded on his back. "Put me down! This is…indecent! And…and…Where are we going?!"

"Well, isn't that obvious? Honestly, Weasley, I knew that Weasleys were daft, but surely you must have some kind of common sense. We're going to the dungeons."

"No! I say no!" Ginny said, pounding his back furiously.

"Hmm…in the punishment Dumbledore assigned for us, I seem to have missed the part in which he said 'Weasley is your master. You have to follow all of her orders.' All he said was that we have to be together all day. And we are. And we're going to the dungeons," Draco explained patiently.

Ginny laughed. "But this isn't fair! You're stronger than me!"

"And that's my fault…how?"

"I'm being manhandled, I'm being manhandled!" Ginny shouted, grinning.

"Hey, shut up back there! Do you want someone to think you're being kidnapped and raped?"

"Then put me down!" Then Ginny whined, "The blood's rushing to my head!"

"No."

"Yes! Now!"

"I said no, Weasley!"

"Put me down before I make you!" Ginny threatened.

Draco scoffed, smirking. "What're you going to do, Weasley?"

Ginny groped through her mind for a possible plan of escape. Finding none, she growled in frustration. When Draco tried to carry her through a door in the Entrance Hall that led into the dungeons, Ginny reached out with both arms and grabbed hold of either side of the doorframe. This immediately halted Draco's process and he frowned at the fact that his feet were moving but he wasn't going anywhere.

"Weasley, let go of the door!" Draco shouted in frustration.

"No way, put me down!"

"Let go of the doorframe and maybe I'll put you down."

"Lying bastard, you wouldn't put me down! Put me down first and then I'll let go!" Ginny insisted.

"No way."

"Well we can't just stand here, can we?"

"Fine, I'll put you down at the same time you let go of the doorframe," Draco reasoned.

Ginny glared at his back suspiciously. "How do I know you'll do it?"

"I give you my word as the grandson of Septimus III that I will put you down at the same time you release the doorframe."

Ginny continued to glare at his back. He couldn't see her, but Draco felt as if his back were being drilled into.

"Come on, Weasley. Malfoys lie but they don't break promises. It's dishonorable," Draco explained.

"Fine," Ginny finally agreed. "One…two…three!"

Ginny released the doorframe and as soon as she did this, Draco continued walking down to the dungeons. "Malfoy!" Ginny shouted. "You promised! You said you didn't break promises!"

Draco chuckled. "Weasley, Weasley, I didn't break a promise at all. I gave you my word as the grandson of Septimus III. My grandfather's name is Aurelius, not Septimus. Therefore, the promise was invalid."

Ginny growled in frustration, pounding him on the back. "You dirty rotten cheating snake!" The cogs in Ginny's head worked furiously, searching for a way to escape and regain the upper hand in the situation. If this was a cartoon, a light bulb would have flicked on above Ginny's head a moment later as she thought up a plan. She grinned evilly.

"I'll warn you one last time. Put me down or else," Ginny said calmly.

Draco chuckled. "It's too late. I've won, Weasley. You're stuck and we're going to the dungeons."

Ginny put on a Malfoy-esque smirk. "Fine, you asked for it."

__

'Oh crap…I can't believe I'm going to do this…'

Ginny thought.

_'But I have to. If I do, he'll flip and I'll win. I have to, I have to.'_

Setting her mouth in a determined line, Ginny reached down and grabbed his arse.

"What the he-" Draco exclaimed as he stumbled in his surprise and fell forward, Ginny landing on top of him. She scrambled to her feet, smoothing down her hair.

"Weasley," Draco drawled as he slowly climbed to his feet, and brushed off his robes coolly, trying to salvage his dignity, "I know I'm irresistible but couldn't you have waited until we were in the dungeons and not a public hallway? Tsk, tsk, Weasley, I thought you had more control than that."

Ginny just grinned as she turned and began walking the way they had come from. She didn't care what he said to try to dampen her good cheer, because he couldn't; she had won this time. She got to a fork in the dungeon corridors and froze, her smile dropping slightly. She turned to see Draco standing nonchalantly with his arms crossed where she had left him.

"What's wrong, Weasley," Draco drawled, grinning smugly, "Lost?"

Ginny scowled as she surveyed the choices she had of which way to go. She figured she could guess the way back to the entrance hall, but the dungeons wound around beneath the castle for miles and miles. One could get lost for days and with her luck, she would be one of the unfortunate ones to get lost for days and starve.

Draco turned and began heading deeper into the dungeons, and Ginny, still scowling, followed him sullenly. She took out her wand as they walked and muttered a spell behind his back that turned his hair neon blue. It was a childish revenge, she knew, but she drew a strange satisfaction from it nonetheless.

After ten more minutes of wandering around the dungeons (Ginny suspected that Draco was purposely taking the most complicated and longest route to the Slytherin common room to ensure that she was lost and would not be able to find her way back to the entrance hall on her own), they stood at a dead end. A dark green tapestry, unadorned but for two S's embroidered onto the center of the cloth in a loopy, swirling manner in silver thread.

"Salazar's serpent," Draco said to the tapestry and the cloth split in half, the wall splitting in half right along with it to reveal a brightly-lit circular room that Ginny correctly guessed was the Slytherin common room.

Draco stepped through the doorway and strode into the common room. The people in the room glanced up at him as he entered and soon returned to whatever they were doing, apparently disinterested that Draco had entered. Their heads shot up, though, when Ginny entered the room right behind him.

Ginny now knew how a strange and rare animal in a zoo felt as everyone in the room whispered to each other and pointed at her.

__

'Ugh,'

Ginny thought as she tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling, _'Which one of you up there hates me? Can you tell me what I've done to deserve all this? This is going to be two _long _days…'_

**

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Author's Note: Wee! Loooooong chapter!

And don't forget to check out my one-shot D/G if you're interested. It's called "Finding Me and Finding You."

Oh, and if you have questions or comments or anything, feel free to IM me on MSN or AIM or email me, I love talking to people and I swear I don't bite strangers. Oh, and if I do happen to bite you, it's okay, I don't have rabies . My addresses are in my profile.


	9. And I don't want the world to see me

**Author's Note:** WEEEE! SOOOO sorry for not updating sooner, guys . I feel awful. I've been working on this chapter off and on for like...the last month now and while I still don't like it, I don't want to make you guys wait any longer.

Anyway, I have good news guys! I just got my own computer for my birthday (no more sharing with my sisters twitch twitch) so I'm sure I'll be able to update more often since I'm now directly connected to the internet from my room with my very own computer. Before, I had to type up chapters on my laptop and then save the chapter to a floppy and post it using the desktop I shared with my sisters or I had to type the chapters right on the desktop in the little time I had before one of my sisters wanted the computer . But now I'll be able to type it here for as long as I want and post it from here. This should make updates MUCH faster. I'm sure everyone will be happy about that.

**Disclaimer:** Plot mine. Characters and setting not mine.

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**Just a Theory**

**Chapter 9**

Draco smirked, observing Ginny's obvious discomfort as Ginny followed him into the Slytherin common room.

"Oi, Draco, what are you doing dragging Gryffindors in here? Don't you know this is a Gryffindor-free zone?" someone shouted from a squashy green armchair beside a table with a wizard's chessboard set up on it.

"It wasn't my choice to have a Gryffindor tagging along all the time, Warren," Draco retorted sharply.

Blaise Zabini grinned from his green armchair across the table from Warren. "She looks delectable. Can we eat her?" While he was grinning up at Draco and Ginny, Warren smirked and moved a few pieces on the chessboard.

Ginny glared in his direction, though she scooted behind Draco slightly, hoping that, because of their punishment together, he would protect her from the big bad Slytherins.

Draco smirked as he glanced back at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Sure boys, she's all yours. You'll just be doing me a favor by getting her out of my hair."

Ginny gaped at Draco as he began to ascend the stairs to the boys' dormitories. "D-Draco! I mean…you…you're…you're not going to leave me alone down here…are you?" Ginny asked, trying to sound indifferent and casual so that he wouldn't realize that she was slightly frightened.

"Sure, why not?" Draco answered flippantly and shrugged a shoulder, still climbing towards the boys' dormitories. "Not _scared_, are you, Weasley?" he sneered.

Ginny pulled herself up to her full height and jutted out her chin stubbornly. "Of course not!" she retorted indignantly.

"By the way, Draco, nice hair," Blaise called, snickering.

Draco looked down at Blaise questioningly over his shoulder. Then he entered the boys' dormitories. Ginny waited for a full six seconds before he came back out of the dormitory, his hair returned to its normal shade of pale silver blonde.

"Hah, that was funny, Weasley," he drawled. "Now I'll really have to feed you to the rest of the Slytherins.

Ginny glared at him confidently. "They wouldn't eat me! Even Slytherins aren't so monstrous."

Draco shrugged, tossing himself into a squashy armchair by the fire. "Probably not. But one can always hope, wouldn't you agree?"

Ginny laughed, some of the tension leaving her as she sat down in an armchair near him. "I guess so, but I thought you didn't believe in hope."

"I don't," came the clipped reply.

"Well then that just doesn't make sense, does it? It's like…a contradiction. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Checkmate, mate," Warren declared proudly.

Blaise turned away from Ginny and Draco and surveyed the chessboard in disbelief. "You cheated, you prat!"

Warren adopted an innocent façade. "But mate, wizard's chessboards are _always_ charmed so that there's no way to cheat! I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing!"

"Well you must have bought one of those-those…uncharmed ones!" Blaise accused. "You cheated, I know you did!"

Just then, Crabbe and Goyle ambled into the Slytherin common room, howling at the top of their lungs, "Malfoy! Malfoy! MALFOY! WHERE ARE YOU! ARE YOU HERE!"

Draco scowled. "What do you two want?"

Crabbe scratched his head in thought. "Uhm…well Blaise said to find you and tell you that…uhh…he sells gargoyles and you have crabs."

Goyle nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I heard 'im say so."

Blaise scoffed. "I told you two to find Malfoy two days ago! What have you been doing since then?"

Crabbe frowned in confusion. "We were lookin' for Malfoy!" he replied, as if that were obvious.

"And it took you two days to find him?" Blaise asked in disbelief.

"It's a big castle!" Goyle pointed out in his-and Crabbe's-defense.

Blaise ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever. It doesn't matter now anyway."

"Hey, you know, while we's walking in castle for Malfoy, gotta hard question," Crabbe said in his who-needs-all-of-the-words-I'll-just-leave-some-out way of speaking. "Saw really old guy the long white beard glasses," he said.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah! That guy!" Crabbe said. "Anyways, he asked us, 'What's the meaning of life?' And we been thinkin' bout it, Crabbe and me…I mean Goyle and Crabbe…I mean Goyle and Crabbe and I and we thought we'd ask you, Malfoy, once we found you."

Draco frowned. "It's…well you know, it's life! You live you die, and that's about all there is to it. It's...well...Blaise, you explain it to them."

"Well…it's like…you know…you live to die…I guess…Or…you live to…live…you know?"

"Well I imagine the meaning of life is to be happy. And that's not to connote false happiness through material gains such as money and jewels and expensive clothes, but happiness knowing that you've lived your life to the fullest of its potential. You see, living with regrets about things you should have done differently or things you should have changed is just as not living at all. Isn't that correct, Goyle?" he asked his friend.

"Indeed, Crabbe, you are most correct. For Alexander Graham Bell once wisely stated that 'When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.' Regret about the past really only distracts from the future and-truly-the future is everything. You know, that must be a component of the meaning of life as well. Wouldn't you agree, my friend?" Goyle asked, turning to Crabbe.

"Why certainly; it must be. The future is all; to live life is to walk into it confidently and with courage, facing all fears, all obstacles, and all tribulations, big or small," Crabbe declared, rubbing his chin in thought.

"Oh yes, how very astute of you, dear Crabbe," Goyle congratulated.

"Why thank you, Goyle. Your theories were most intelligent as well."

Draco, Ginny, and Blaise all blinked at Crabbe and Goyle as they complimented each other using words with more than one syllable.

Blaise shook his head in shock. "I'm going to attribute that to a momentary slip in stupidity on your parts, because I don't know where the hell all of that came from."

"'Atterbute? Whassat?" Crabbe asked in confusion. "Is it food?"

"'Moomuntery?' Izzat a disease for cows?" Goyle asked.

Blaise rubbed his forehead in exasperation. Then he looked down at his watch and feigned surprise. "Look at the time! It's time for dinner already!" he exclaimed.

Crabbe and Goyle never ran as fast as they did when it was time for dinner. Within seconds, they had clambered out of the Slytherin common room, hurrying to the Great Hall for dinner. They'd probably never realize that dinner wasn't for another hour and a half.

Blaise sighed in relief. "I thought they'd never leave." Then he turned to Ginny and Draco. "How about a game before dinner?"

"Like what?" Ginny asked.

Blaise grinned mischievously. "How about a friendly round of strip poker?"

Ginny flushed and glared at him. "No way!"

Draco snorted. "Come on, Blaise, she's a Weasley. Why are you trying to get someone like _her_ naked?" he asked, a bit icily.

Blaise glanced over at Draco in slight shock. What was that he heard in Draco's voice? It wasn't obvious and was well hidden beneath layers of ice, but Blaise could still sense a slight nuance in Draco's attitude. After all, he had known him long enough to tell what wasn't normal behavior for him. Was it...was it jealousy! A sudden though hit Blaise: he could still get extra credit from McGonagall. He grinned devilishly to himself.

"Why Draco, how can you say that so derisively about so lovely a lady?" Blaise asked, taking Ginny's hand and placing a kiss on it. "I apologize for my friend's...issues," he said to her, apologetically.

Draco scowled.

"Uhm..." Ginny said, eyes darting toward Draco and back to Blaise.

"Perhaps you would like a tour of the dungeons? They're notorious for being hard to navigate through. Perhaps I could show you around so that you won't get lost?" Blaise offered.

Ginny pulled her hand back and glanced at Draco. "Well I'm supposed to stay with-"

"You realize that I'll have to come along, right Blaise?" Draco asked coolly, still scowling a bit. "I'm tied to Weasley for two days."

Blaise scoffed. "We're Slytherins, not Hufflepuffs. I won't tell him if you don't. What are the chances that he'll be wandering around the dungeons to catch us?"

Draco hesitated for a moment and then his scowl deepened. "It's fine by me; it'll get her off my ass for a while-" here he smirked at Ginny "-quite literally too."

Ginny flushed and glared at him. "I only did it because you lied and tricked me and wouldn't put me down! You…you…liar," she accused lamely.

Draco's smirk widened and he spread his hands innocently. "I didn't say it was unwarranted, but it can't be disputed that you did it."

Ginny laughed, her embarrassment dispersing as she heard Draco's teasing tone and the corners of Draco's mouth were turning up ever so slightly in a...smile? Blaise was so shocked that he leaned closer to Draco and stared at his mouth.

Draco leaned back a bit so that Blaise wasn't so close to him. "What are you doing?"

"You...you were..." Blaise mumbled absently, poking Draco's lips as if to make sure they were real.

Draco slapped his hand away. "What the hell!"

"You were smiling! I saw it with my own eyes!" Blaise declared.

Ginny and Draco stared at him. "So?" Draco finally asked.

"Well...well it was just...a new thing, you know?" Blaise struggled to explain.

Draco smirked and looked at Ginny. "I apologize for my friend's...insanity," he said, mocking Blaise's earlier words.

"Well this is interesting…" Blaise murmured amusedly.

"What is?" Ginny and Draco asked in unison. Then they glared at each other slightly, as if speaking the same words at the same time was disgusting.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I really didn't mean to break up your little love fest. Please continue," Blaise told them, gesturing for them to keep going as he leaned back in his chair as if to watch.

Ginny and Draco both stared at him with what could only be described as looks of pure horror.

"Please don't stop on my account!" Blaise said, feigning sincerity. "You two were getting along so famously!" he exclaimed. Inside, he was triumphant, '_Just wait until I tell Professor McGonagall this! I'll get an A in Transfiguration, for sure!'_

Ginny's mouth dropped open and Draco scowled as they both moved their armchairs farther away from each other.

"Weasleys and Malfoys don't get along 'famously,' Zabini," Draco retorted.

"Only because Malfoys are arrogant pricks!" Ginny snapped at him.

"Better arrogant pricks who are rich than crawling around a dirty hovel."

"You should be nicer to people, you know! You never know when you might need their help; if you ever came to me for help, I'd spit on you and show you the door!" Ginny exclaimed.

Draco smirked. "I'd tear off my own arm and eat it before I ever came to any Weasley for help."

Ginny growled in anger. "You're impossible!"

"And I'm sure he's proud of it," Blaise said calmly. "Now, Malfoy, can you tell me exactly what it is about Miss Weasley that you dislike so much?" he asked in a shrink-at-an-asylum manner.

Draco scoffed. "Come off it, Zabini; she's a Weasley. What more do you need?"

"Hating someone because of an age-old family feud is kind of silly, don't you think? Immature, even?" Blaise probed.

"It's not immature; that's just how it is," Draco replied shortly.

"I think it's immature," Ginny muttered angrily, her arms crossed.

"You're certainly on to talk, Weasley. You undoubtedly hate me for just the same reason," Draco snapped.

Ginny glared. "No, no, Malfoy. I hate you for every cruel, hateful thing you or your family has done to me or my family. And what have we ever done to you to deserve your family's hatred. As far as I know, we've done nothing!"

"Now Ginny, how does that make you _feel_?" Blaise asked soothingly.

Draco glared at Blaise. "You'll quit playing the shrink _now_," he said, in a dangerously low voice.

Blaise held up his hands innocently. "I'm only trying to help here!"

"You shouldn't lend help when it's not asked for," Draco replied coldly. "Weasley can stay and receive help but I won't suffer through any of your so-called 'help.'" Then he stood and strode out of the common room.

_'Damn, pushed the wrong buttons again…'_ Blaise cursed himself in his head. _'Oh well, I got plenty out of this particular meeting. McGonagall should be happy…'_

Ginny sighed. "Most excellent. Now I can't even go anywhere or Dumbledore might see that we're not together and extend our punishment. And I can hardly go look for him. He's probably wandering the dungeons and I'll just get lost. Impossible prat…" Ginny grumbled to herself.

"Don't be too upset with Draco. Draco is like…a bomb," Blaise stated simply.

Ginny stared at him. "…a…bomb…?"

"Yes, exactly. If you try to disassemble a bomb, try to pick apart all the tiny wires, separate the blue from the red, the green from the yellow, to try to prevent the bomb from exploding, the bomb gets extremely touchy. It threatens to detonate at any moment, and it ticks, ticks. And then, you have to make sure you cut the right colored wire, because if you pull at the wrong wire, it'll just explode on you and destroy a continent. Do you follow me?"

Ginny frowned in thought. "Uhm…yes, I think so…"

"I wouldn't be too worried if I were you. He's cold and aloof and arrogant and selfish and rude and priggish and mean and cruel and materialistic and has the shortest temper you'll ever see, but I like to think he's a softie, like…a big teddy bear, really," Blaise explained, grinning.

Ginny giggled. "Malfoy…a teddy bear? I'll believe he's like a teddy bear when Satan scrapes ice off of the windshield of his car in Hell," she said sarcastically.

Blaise shook his head, chuckling. "Well, I'm off. Gotta try to get some studying in before dinner," and then he stood and left the common room.

* * *

Professor McGonagall was grinning from ear to ear as she patrolled the halls. She had just finished overseeing a second year's detention when Blaise Zabini had come to her classroom to bring her good news. She could already picture her Certificate of Completion hanging on the wall in her room. She had even cleared a spot on the wall for her degree above her desk. She felt so happy she thought she would skip through the halls; but she caught herself and settled on just a little more spring in her step instead of outright skipping. Skipping through the halls was against the rules.

* * *

It was long after dinner by the time Draco finally came back to the Slytherin common room. The room was empty when he entered except for the crackling, dancing fire in the fireplace. Walking towards the fireplace to take a seat in an armchair, he noticed that someone else was sitting in a chair near the fireplace. Though he could only see the back of her head, he could tell from the deep red hair that it was Ginny.

He sat in an armchair on the other side of the fireplace from her. "Didn't you go to dinner? Why are you still here?"

"I couldn't go to dinner!" Ginny huffed in irritation. "If I had gone, Dumbledore would have seen that we were apart and then he'd just extend our punishment and that wouldn't be any good for either of us."

Draco nodded.

"Dumbledore didn't see you, did he?" Ginny asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

"Of course not," he answered flippantly. "I'm not so careless as to get caught."

Ginny sighed in relief. "That's good."

Draco stared into the fire for a moment and then he glanced up at Ginny. "Listen, Weasley: if we're going to survive this ordeal, I think we should…you know…have…an arrangement…"

Ginny grinned mischievously. "Oh my! Is big bad Malfoy calling for a _truce_? A _peace treaty_?"

Draco smirked. "If you don't like it, I'm just fine with throwing insults at you all day. It's not like I'm at a loss for insults when you're the subject. But…as hard as it is to admit…I think it would be better for both of us if we pretended to…get…along. As it is now, come the end of two days, the old man will see that we still argue with each other and will just extend our punishment."

Ginny nodded. Then she feigned pride and wiped at her eyes. "My little Dracie-wakie is getting sensible."

"The first rule is that you don't ever call me that again...ever," Draco declared tartly.

"And no more insulting each other's families. Or insulting our different houses or each other, unless in jest. And no getting on each other's nerves in general. Agreed?"

Draco nodded and they shook hands on it.

"And no swearing on non-existent family members' graves!" Ginny added, grinning.

Draco smirked. "I swear on the honor of the Malfoy name."

Ginny made a face. "Merlin, don't swear on that; it won't mean anything."

"Ah-ah-ah!" Draco scolded, waving a finger. "One of the agreements was no more insults about our families."

"Unless in jest," Ginny pointed out, sticking her tongue out at him.

Just then, Ginny's stomach growled loudly.

Draco snickered. "Control yourself, Weasley."

Ginny flushed and glared at him. "You can't control your stomach growling! And it's your fault I missed dinner!"

"You're getting on my nerves, Weasley. Isn't that against the rules?"

Ginny growled in irritation. "Yes, well you're getting on my nerves too! I knew that agreement was too good to last."

Draco smirked. Then he stood. "Let's go down to the kitchens. Maybe they'll give you some food if you let them listen to your stomach."

"If my stomach growls loud enough, you think they'll give me chocolate cake?" Ginny asked, rubbing her stomach hopefully.

Draco snickered. "You're pathetic, Weasley."

"I'm hungry!"

Draco stood. "Let's go then or you'll explode. And we all know what a tragedy that'd be."

"Hey, that's against-" Ginny began to protest.

"'Unless in jest,'" Draco mimicked, smirking.

"Some truce this is," Ginny muttered as they left the Slytherin common room.

After they had their fill to eat, Draco and Ginny began heading up to the Gryffindor tower. As they neared the exit of the dungeons, they heard footsteps.

"Ow, Ron! That was my bloody foot!"

Ginny recognized Harry's voice and shoved Draco back into the corridor they had come from. Draco and Ginny listened from around the corner as the footsteps got closer. The footsteps passed by their corner and continued down the corridor perpendicular to the hall Ginny and Draco were hiding in.

"Tell me again why I decided to follow you two idiots?" Hermione muttered.

"They weren't at dinner! I swear, if that bastard is holding her hostage or something, I'll kill 'im!" Ron declared vehemently. "Oh right," Hermione replied, as if the reason had just dawned on her. "I'm here to keep you two out of trouble."

"Oh, Hermione, that was my eye!" Harry exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, but it's hard to see since we're all squashed under this cloak in this dark dungeon. Ow!"

"Oops, sorry," Ron apologized sheepishly.

"No, Harry, Slytherin isn't that way; it's this way," Hermione said.

"No, it's not! It's right down here!"

"No, it's not tha-ow! My hair! Wait, no, don't turn yet!"

"Oh sorry. Ow! Let's go this way."

"Not that way! Only-ahh!"

Suddenly Harry, Hermione, and Ron appeared on the stone floor in a heap, Harry's invisibility cloak tangled around their legs.

"Oooh, you two are impossible! Why do I put up with you?" Hermione muttered. "Oh, honestly."

"Owwww…"

Draco scoffed from their corner. "So this is what a great mission of the illustrious golden trio is like. How admirable," he commented sardonically.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "How would I know? I've never been invited to join them," she whispered back to him, a bit sourly.

Draco glanced back at the trio sprawled on the stone floor. "Let's go."

Ginny nodded and followed him out of the dungeons.

When Draco and Ginny finally got to the Gryffindor common room, they stood awkwardly. The fire in the hearth danced brightly and popped and crackled every now and then. A clock above the fireplace ticked...ticked...

"Uhm...what do we do about sleeping arrangements? Professor Dumbledore didn't quite...explain it fully..." Ginny mumbled, looking down at her feet.

As if Dumbledore were listening (Ginny was quite certain he was), a door that hadn't been there a few seconds ago sprang open near them. Ginny and Draco glanced at each other skeptically and then slowly made their way towards the door.

The door from the common room led to a small room with two writing desks in the two far corners of the room and two beds set up near each other. And fire crackled merrily in a small fireplace and there was a door to their left. Draco pushed open the door and they saw that it was a small bathroom.

"Perfect. Now my nightmare is complete: living with a Weasley," Draco muttered to himself.

"I heard that!" Ginny declared hotly.

"Calm down, it was only 'in jest,' Weasley," Draco said, smirking.

Ginny glared at him. "When we made that truce I should have remembered that you have a distorted sense of humor."

Draco appeared not to have heard her as he walked toward one of the writing desks, picking a letter up off of it. He broke the seal and then rolled open the parchment, reading aloud, "If you're reading this letter, you've obviously found the room you will be staying in for the night. Enjoy your stay and remember that I'm watching you very closely so don't make any trouble for each other. Good night and sleep well. Sincerely, Professor Dumbledore."

Draco examined the letter for a few moments longer and then ripped it up, tossing the pieces into the fire. "Who does that old bat think he is? Thinking I'd pull one over on a Weasley," Draco scoffed.

Ginny glared towards him but decided to ignore that comment for now. Then she looked around the room. "Well how are we supposed to be staying here if we don't have-"

There was a small "Pop!" and Ginny's and Draco's trunks appeared at the foot of the beds. Ginny glanced about her nervously, up at the ceiling, at the corners. "That's kind of creepy..." she mumbled.

They took turns changing into their pajamas in the bathroom and, after a small argument about who should get which bed ("I have to be able to get out of my bed on the right side," Draco argued), they finally crawled into their beds.

Ginny stared up into the dark at the ceiling, her thoughts working through all that had happened that day. Overall, it hadn't been _that_ bad, which was saying a lot since she had just spent the _entire_ day with Draco Malfoy. Even if it hadn't been too terrible an experience, it had still been a _long_ day. Ginny giggled aloud when she remembered Ron warning her about looking Draco in the eye because he'd turn her to stone. It had seemed absurd even at the time, but looking back on it, his "advice" seemed doubly ridiculous.

"Some people like to sleep at night, Weasley. What can possibly be so funny?" Draco muttered from his bed.

Ginny grinned. "This morning, when I went down to the common room, my brother gave me some advice." Ginny heard some shuffling from Draco's as if he were shifting position to hear her better.

"Oh yeah? Like what?" he sounded genuinely curious, and that was saying something because Draco was never genuinely anything.

"Well, first it was the normal things, like scream and beat you up if you started...ahem...molesting me and things like that. Then he said that I had to make sure I didn't look you in the eye or you'd turn me to stone," Ginny told him.

Draco snorted. "Figures..."

They laid in comfortable silence for a few moments and finally Draco spoke up, and when he did, he sounded almost...nervous.

"Hey...Weasley?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember...when you said that your parents...told you...stories before you went to bed?"

"Yes, I remember..." Ginny answered slowly, wondering what he was getting at.

"Well...I was...just curious...well...what kind of stories were they?" he asked. Ginny could tell he was trying to make his voice sound as casual and indifferent as possible.

She grinned up at the ceiling. "All kinds of stories. Fairy tales, legends, myths, novels, classic literature. Sometimes he would even read articles out of the newspaper because he thought it was important that his children all know about what was happening in the world. Want to know about my favorite one?"

"If you feel like you just _have _to share it, I suppose I could put up with your babbling for a few minutes."

"Well, in a lot of Asian countries they have this legend about an angel and a woodsman. There are a lot of different versions, but basically, there was a poor woodsman cutting down trees in a forest and deer came bounding towards him. The deer begged him to save him from a hunter and in return he promised him a magnificent secret. The woodsman saved the deer and the deer, true to his word, told the man where heavenly maidens came down from the heavens to bathe in a lake on the mountain. The deer told him that if he stole one of their heavenly robes, the maiden wouldn't be able to return to the heavens.

"So the woodsman did that and he and heavenly maiden were married. Eventually they had a child together but the angel was so sad that the woodsman gave her back her heavenly robe. I guess he assumed that she loved him enough to stay, even with the robe back in her possession. But she left, floating back up to the heavens. In some versions of the story, he finds a way to go to the heavens with them and in other versions, he doesn't and he returns to being a lonely woodsman again.

"Isn't it a great story?" Ginny asked. She waited for Draco to reply but all she could hear was his steady breathing. Ginny smiled to herself and rolled over in her bed, snuggling under her covers. "Goodnight, Draco."

"'Night Ginny..." Draco mumbled, though Ginny guess that he was mumbling in his sleep. She froze for a moment, shocked by how...strange it felt to be telling each other goodnight as if they were...friends...or something else.

Ginny smiled. She decided that she liked the way he said her name.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Wee! Another chapter done! About time too. I hope you guys all liked it; I wasn't entirely satisfied with it. And also, I don't have Microsoft Word on this computer yet so I couldn't do a spell check. I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors. I think I'm pretty good about spelling and grammar most of the time anyway, even without spell check, but everyone has typos, and I'm sure I have plenty, hehe. I love this last scene with Ginny and Draco though. It makes me warm and tingly inside - Anyway, again, feel free to IM me or email me; I love to hear from you guys. I don't use AIM anymore, just MSN messenger so you'll have to IM me through MSNM. It's all in my profile. So I'll see you guys !soon! with the next chapter! -


	10. Cause I don't think they'd understand

**Author's Note:** Hello all! I've returned with another chapter for you guys. I know I said I'd update faster but…well I know I didn't update very quickly. But hey, I updated faster than last time right? Anyway, this chapter is short than the other chapter; I'm really sorry for that. I wanted to start making my chapters longer but this one didn't work out that way. The reason for this short chapter is that I'm going to Japan for two weeks and I'm leaving tomorrow. So I wanted to update before I left for two weeks so I wouldn't have to keep you all waiting! So I've been writing off and on all day and it's now 12:01 AM and I need to go to sleep since I have to get up early tomorrow. I hope you all won't be too disappointed with the chapter. It has the **Draco/Ginny action** you've all been waiting for! So enjoy! And I'll try to get out a longer chapter once I'm back from Japan.

Oh, also, I did have a reason not to update too much sooner than this too. A legitimate reason…kind of? My posting abilities were taken away from me for a while because found some of my fanfics from WAY WAY back when I first started writing here and deleted them, giving me warnings and suspending my posting abilities for however much amount of time. It sucked. I didn't even remember I still had those stories posted. Honestly…arses…those were posted before most of your crappy rules. Grr…anyway, I'm over that. And I won't write anything like those anymore anyway, so it's all good and my account should be fine now.

**Disclaimer:** Plot: mine. Everything else: not mine.

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Just a Theory

**Chapter 10**

Ginny sat near the lake beneath a willow tree, the willow's long, wispy branches waving slightly in the soft breeze. The sun was shining brightly and the giant squid's tentacles glistened in the sunlight. She heard footsteps behind her and turned. It was Draco.

"What are you doing here?"

Draco shrugged. "Last time I checked, the lake was still open to the public."

Ginny snorted. "You shouldn't be considered 'public.' Public enemy number one, maybe."

Draco laughed, a pure, unaffected, genuine laugh. Ginny was surprised; she had never heard this sound from Draco before. Then he sat down beside her in the grass and they sat in silence for long moments; Ginny couldn't decide whether the silence was a comfortable one or not. It just kind of hung there between them, not looming and menacing, but neither was it happy and content; it was just…there.

She felt him brush against her arm as he changed position. He was sitting so close to her that his arm touched hers, just barely. There was a warm pull at the spot on her arm he was touching and she couldn't say why, whether she wanted to or not.

The water of the lake glittered brilliantly beneath the sun, sparkles dancing swiftly over the surface, like the glitter she had used in preschool. Small breezes softly tugged at Ginny's hair and the air was crisp and clean and fresh. The weather was particularly nice that day, considering that it was late October.

"Ginny?" Draco finally said, pulling Ginny out of her thoughts.

"Hmm?" she replied, closing her eyes and tilting her face up to the sun lazily.

"I just…well I think…I mean, I just want you to know…hanging out with you…really isn't that bad. I could…think of a lot of punishments that would have been worse…" he said, sounding extremely uncomfortable.

Ginny's eyes flew open again and she turned her head to stare at him. He looked back at her for a moment, his eyes locked with hers. Then he began leaning forward, moving closer to her.

"I think…" he said, still moving even closer, "that we're good together."

And then his lips were pressed against hers. Ginny let out a small squeak but it was muffled against Draco's lips.

'What's happening down there!' her mind was screaming at her mouth since all thoughts and feeling from her lips weren't making it all the way to her brain. Her body and mind were shutting down.

'Oh gods…my first kiss…is from Draco Malfoy…'

His arms moved around her waist pulling her closer to him, pressing his body against hers. She felt his tongue slide across her lips and felt and electric shock run through her body. She was sensationally, acutely aware of every point on her body that was touching his. He gently pushed her back until she was lying on her back in the grass, and then began placing kisses down her neck to her collarbone.

"Gin…I need you. Please…help me love you," he whispered against her neck.

"Oh…Draco…" she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

Suddenly, Ginny felt something fluffy forcefully hit her face. She opened her eyes and saw that she had been asleep in her bed. Except she wasn't in the girl's dormitory because there was no bed above hers. She blinked in confusion.

'Where-' she began to ask herself.

"Oi, lazy arse, if you don't get up, you won't have time to take a shower after me. And you need it too. You sound like the Hogwarts Express when you sleep, by the way; you snored loudly all night."

She sat up and saw Draco kneeling in front of the trunk at the foot of his bed, digging out his shower materials: soap, shampoo, clean clothes and robes, and so on. He wasn't wearing a shirt. She suddenly remembered the dream she had just had and flushed a brilliant scarlet.

"Oh gods…" Gunny muttered, burying her face in her blankets. She couldn't believe that she had just had a romantic, steamy dream about Draco Malfoy.

He smirked at her. "I didn't think you'd be so mortified about your snoring. I'm going to take a shower."

Ginny's head shot up. "Who said you get the shower first? I'm a girl; I should go first."

Draco snorted. "Says who? Besides, I was awake first; I should get to go first," he said, turning to head into the bathroom.

"Oh no you don't!" Ginny protested, jumping to her feet, running to the end of her bed, and then leaping onto Draco's back, grabbing on to him around his shoulders.

"Bloody hell, Weasley!" he exclaimed in surprise, stumbling backwards. His clean clothes and robes, towel, shampoo, soap, and comb all tumbled to the ground as he fought to keep his balance. The back of his legs hit the end of Ginny's bed and he fell backwards on top of her. He quickly flipped over and straddled her. Ginny struggled angrily but he was far stronger than she was. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands up and held them up above her head.

"Now, let's play nice, shall we?" Draco said, and then glanced down at the position they were in.

Ginny sharply sucked in her breath. She was at the mercy of Draco Malfoy. His eyes held something in them that made her face grow warm and she blushed. Again, she thought of her vivid dream; could kissing him really feel like that? Suddenly, her mind flew out of her ears and-on an impulse-she lifted her head up off the bed and quickly kissed him.

They stared at each other in shock, Ginny just as astonished as Draco was. There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence as they both froze, just staring at each other. Both were unsure of how to proceed. Finally, as if jumping to some secret conclusion, Draco cleared his throat loudly and climbed off of her, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking away from her. Ginny sat at the other side of the bed. Her heart was pounding painfully in her chest and her face was burning.

"Draco, I-"

"I'm going to go take a shower," he cut in smoothly.

Ginny nodded, though it was useless because he couldn't see her anyway.

Draco stood and collected his things before heading into the bathroom. When the door was safely shut behind him, Ginny flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Oh gods…" she muttered, feeling like she was going to be sick. But, she wondered, was she sick because Draco Malfoy was her sworn enemy and what she had done was disgusting? Or was she sick because she was nervous that he hated her for it because _she _was disgusting and would never speak to her again…?

Finally, with hot water running down his body, Draco could think straight again. What had happened? One minute they were fighting over the bathroom and the next he was straddling and staring down at the beautiful girl beneath him.

Draco's hands froze in his hair, mid-lather. Had he just thought of Ginny Weasley as beautiful?

'Disgusting,' Draco scoffed in his mind as his hands began working shampoo through his hair again.

And she had kissed him. That had been the biggest shock of all. Not that he wasn't accustomed to kissing girls, but he had always been the one initiating kisses. Ginny had just lifted her head and kissed him as innocent as anything and that was astounding to him. But, even if he knew that the kiss was coming, would he have protested? Turned away in disgust? He wasn't so sure anymore…

And, Draco thought, what about when she had been sleeping? That morning, he had been awakened by the sounds of Ginny mumbling from her bed. He was about to toss his pillow or shout at her, but he had frozen when he heard what she was mumbling. She had been mumbling _his _name, not Malfoy, but Draco. And she had been tossing and turning in her bed. Had she been dreaming about him? A romantic dream even?

'That old man knows how to pick his punishments well; this one's driving me insane…' Draco thought to himself. "I hate you, you old bat," Draco said to the wall, scowling.

Draco and Ginny exchanged the bathroom quickly and silently, both avoiding speaking to-or looking at-each other. Ginny quickly shut the door behind her, leaning her back against the door and letting out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. She sighed deeply, pounding the back of her head against the door.

"Careful, Weasley. You'll ruin what little brain you have," Ginny heard Draco call to her from the other room.

Ginny pushed herself off of the door and turned to face it. She scowled at the door and kicked it. 'I hate you, Draco Malfoy. I hate you,' she thought over and over again.

After her shower, Ginny stood with her hand on the doorknob. She was having trouble working up the nerve to face Draco again. After about five minutes of simply standing there, her hand on the doorknob, Ginny glared at herself in the mirror.

'_This is stupid! What am I afraid of? So I messed up; Malfoy will get over it. And if he doesn't, who cares?__ I certainly don't. Ginny Weasley is never afraid to face anyone!_' she told herself determinedly.

So, with her chin in the air and her new firm resolve in place, Ginny pulled open the bathroom door and went back into the dorm room. She dumped all of her shower materials back into her trunk, sighing happily.

"That was refreshing," she said aloud, to no one in particular. Then she fell back on to her bed and just laid there for long moments, staring at the ceiling.

Draco stared at her as he sat on his bed, slightly perplexed. She seemed to have forgotten about the kiss and moved on and that was bewildering for him. He was still in such a state of shock and confusion and she came out prancing around as if nothing had ever happened? As he stared at her laying on her bed, he had half a mind to go over there and-

'_No…don't get to thinking like that. Just…just stop,_' he thought to himself.

"Hey, Gi-Weasley?" he began.

She turned her head slightly to look at him. "What?"

His eyes inevitably moved to stare at her lips and he looked away quickly. "Never mind; it's nothing."

Ginny chattered all the way up to the Great Hall, leaving no room for awkward silences and Draco walked beside her, nodding dumbly at all the necessary times, still perplexed. They soon wandered through the Entrance Hall and saw a bulletin posted to tell all the students that the next day was a Hogsmead day. Ginny was glad that her punishment with Draco would be over by then so she wouldn't have to spend the day with him instead of her friends.

As they entered the Great Hall for breakfast, Draco smirked.

"Today is my day. I believe there are seats waiting for us at the Slytherin table," he said.

Ginny wrinkled her nose and then sighed in resignation. "Yes, lead the way."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Will this really be the last day of Ginny and Draco's punishment? What will happen between the two? Will Draco ever be…not perplexed? Was the kiss really just nothing? Something they will both forget about and move on?


	11. Well everything's meant to be broken

**Author's Note:** Okay…first, I'd like to make a HUGE apology for seemingly abandoning this story. A lot of things happened (starting college for one), and I didn't have a lot of time to work on fanfictions. BUT, I'm back, and I plan on finishing this story as well as working on others I've seemingly also abandoned. After this chapter, there's only one more chapter before this story is complete, YAY :D I hope everyone's excited for the conclusion. Again, sorry, but here are the promised updates!

**Disclaimer:** As always, I don't own these people.

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* * *

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Just a Theory

**Chapter 11**

As Ginny and Draco neared the Slytherin table, Blaise waved to them and gestured toward two seats across the table from him. Ginny and Draco obediently sat in the offered seats, sitting as far from each other as possible without sitting on the laps of the people on their other sides.

Blaise saw this and raised an eyebrow, puzzled. "So…" he said, trying his best to open conversation. He waited for a few moments but neither Draco nor Ginny said a word. Ginny stared down at the table, her cheeks slightly flushed, and Draco rested his chin in his hand, his elbow on the table, and the fingers of his other hand incessantly drummed against the tabletop.

Blaise then cleared his throat loudly. This also elicited no reaction from Draco and Ginny. Suppressing a mischievous grin, Blaise reached across the table and took one of Ginny's hands in both of his. Placing the sincerest, most caring look he could manage upon his face, he said, "You look flushed. Is everything okay? You're not ill, are you?"

Ginny's head shot up quickly, observing her hand in his with discomfort. Her cheeks grew a deeper color red. "N-no. I'm fine," she replied hurriedly.

"Are you sure?" Blaise asked, his brow furrowing deeper with "concern" and his thumb gently stroking the smooth skin of the top of her hand.

"Y-y-yes…I'm sure. Thank-"

"Good gods, why don't you two just get a room or something?" Draco muttered snidely.

Ginny jumped slightly, pulling her hand away from Blaise's. Then she glared furiously at Draco, her cheeks pure crimson. "What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded angrily.

Draco rolled his eyes slightly. "You two are all over each other; it's disgusting. No one-"

Blaise smirked slyly, smoothly interrupting Draco: "You know…If I didn't know any better...I'd say you were jealous."

Draco's eyes narrowed dangerously, glinting eerily in the light from the candles above the table; and Blaise could have sworn that he saw a slight pinkness to his pale cheeks, but in the dancing, flashing candlelight, he couldn't be sure. "Well…it's a good thing you know better then, isn't it?" he asked, slowly and coldly. "Why would I be jealous of something as…pathetic as Weasley."

Ginny slammed her hands, palms down against the table, pushing herself to her feet. "What the hell is your problem? Have I done something to offend you, your Highness? Because as far as I know, I've done nothing, so why are you being like this? Are you naturally a bastard? Is it a gene you inherited from your parents? Were you born this way? Come on; I want to know! I've had to listen to your insults for far too long; I deserve to know why!"

Draco now leapt to his feet as well, gesticulating wildly. "What about you, Weasley? What is it with you? You're high and then you're low; you hate me and then you're friendly; you're angry and then you're laughing; you're here, you're there. You're all over the bloody map!"

"I am not-" Ginny began to protest but Draco's tirade wasn't over yet.

"You kiss _me_ and then you're all over _Zabini_. Gods, if I never see you again, I'd be-" Draco stopped abruptly as he realized that everyone in the Great Hall was listening to their argument. At his last comment, gasps followed by excited murmurs and whispers flew around the hall until the noise in the hall grew to a low, humming din.

"Why do you care at all about what I do?" Ginny asked quietly so that no one but Draco could hear it over the noise. "Does it really matter to you? In the end, I'm still lower than dirt, right? Undeserving of even being stepped on by you? And you know, maybe if you weren't so…so cruel all the time, I wouldn't be 'all over the bloody map,' and maybe other people would actually like you too. When you're cruel and angry, and you insult my family, I'll be angry. When you're nice, I'll be friendly. Perhaps if _you_ didn't constantly fluctuate, I wouldn't be all over the 'bloody map.'

"All I know is that forty or fifty years from now, you'll be in your big mansion with your expensive furniture, expensive clothes, expensive food, and everything else you could possibly want to buy, and you'll be sitting there wondering why you're so alone.

"But if I'm really so bothersome to you, I'll give you what you want. After our punishment is over today, you'll never see me again and I won't be a nuisance to you anymore. It was silly of me, really; I began to think that maybe we could be friends after this, or at least be civil to each other. But now I see how silly I was to think so. Today is our end, _Malfoy_, and good riddance." Moving past him, Ginny added, "I'm going to go use the restroom; I'm allowed to leave you for that, I believe."

With that said, Ginny strode out of the Great Hall, the murmurs and whispers growing louder in her wake. Draco sat back down on the bench, and, propping his arms up on his elbows, he rested his head in his hands, tugging on his hair in frustration.

Blaise watched him for a few moments and then, after first glancing around him to make sure that no one nearby was listening, leaned forward confidingly. "She kissed you?" he whispered.

Draco lifted his head just enough to glare at him.

"Ahh…don't want to talk about it then…" Blaise said, nodding slowly. "I understand perfectly. Loud and clear. Roger that. Right-o." They sat in silence for a few moments, and then Blaise spoke up again. "So how was it?"

"How do you think?" Draco snapped.

Blaise nodded omnisciently. "It was hot, huh?"

"No! It wasn't hot; it was nothing. It was a little peck! Her lips barely even touched mine. So why is it driving me-" Draco stopped mid-sentence to glance up at Blaise, his eyes squinting with suspicion. "Zabini? Why is it that you always conveniently show up at the right times and cause disaster?"

Blaise blinked nervously at him, trying to feign an innocent smile. "W-what do you mean?"

"I mean you waltz into a room in which Ginny and I happen to be, you drop a few choice words, and suddenly everything is uncomfortable?"

Laughing uneasily, Blaise pounded on the table with a fist. "W-what are you talking about? I do no such thing!"

Draco continued to survey Blaise with suspicion. "You're hiding something."

"Me? Hiding? HAH," Blaise declared, followed by more tense laughter. "Well, I should get going; see you!" he said, and then all but dashed out of the Great Hall.

Over at the Gryffindor table, Ron, red-faced with anger, stood and moved to follow his sister out of the Great Hall. Harry grabbed Ron's arm and held him back. Ron turned to shout at Harry to let him go, but his mouth closed abruptly as he saw the puzzled, strange look on Harry's face.

"Perhaps we should leave her alone for now," Hermione said quietly to Ron.

Ron glanced at both Hermione and Harry with confusion; did they see or understand something he didn't? Were they comprehending the situation properly?!

"Well I can at least give that bastard a piece of my mind!" Ron declared, shrugging out of Harry's grip. Before Hermione or Harry could stop him or even say anything, he stormed over to the Slytherin table and smacked Draco across the back of his head.

"What the hell did you do to my sister!" Ron shouted, his fists clenched angrily.

Draco turned his head just enough to glare at Ron furiously. "Don't you mean what did she do to me?" he asked calmly, though his eyes were flashing dangerously. Some students sitting near Draco nervously moved farther away from him.

"Hah! What could she possibly do to you except hate you, just as any sensible person does?"

Draco smirked. "If she hates me," he asked slowly, "why did she kiss me?"

Ron's mouth opened and closed wordlessly for a few moments and Draco thought with amusement that he looked like some sort of strange fish. "Y-you must have forced her!" he finally sputtered.

"If you don't believe me, ask her for yourself," Draco said, nodding in the direction behind Ron.

Whirling around, Ron saw that Ginny was behind him. "O-oh…G-Gin? You okay?" he asked, feigning concern.

"Ron, don't pretend with me. Be honest; whether I'm okay or not isn't what you want to know. What you really want to ask is if it's true or not, right? Well it is true; Draco's not lying to you. I did kiss him, but I realize now that that was a mistake, so I assure you that it won't happen again," Ginny explained abruptly.

Draco quickly glanced up at her, feeling something he couldn't name. He felt a small twinge. Of what? Regret? Pain? Did she really feel that it was a mistake? Did he think it was a mistake?

"So you don't need to worry, Ron," Ginny finished dismissively as she sat back down beside Draco. Ron stood behind her for a few minutes, cogitating about his next move. Finally, he shuffled back to the Gryffindor table.

Up at the staff table, McGonagal was all but tearing at her hair in frustration. What was going wrong? Why, why, why was nothing working? She couldn't even begin to describe her frustration. Why was everything going so horribly wrong? Maybe they just hated each other too much? Or Mister Malfoy was too detestable? Or Miss Weasley was too argumentative? She had everything: they were together for an extended amount of time, they had plenty of time alone, they were pressured by their peers, they came to certain understandings and agreements, and many other things. So why? Why was nothing working?

"WHY, BY THE GODS, WHY?!" McGonagal cried aloud, forgetting that she was in the crowded hall. The Great Hall fell silent and she cleared her throat, straightening her robes and attempting to appear nonchalant. Then she stood and stormed out of the hall in a foul mood. Several students moaned and groaned after she had exited the hall, complaining that she would probably be cranky in class that day and would assign a lot of homework.

In her room, McGonagall sighed sullenly as she sat down at her writing desk with a quill and parchment, prepared to write her paper, which would say that she was unable to prove the theory created by professional psychologists to be true. She almost thought she would cry as she began the paper.

'_After all these years…my chance…lost…'_

She sighed again, her quill hovering above her piece of parchment. It hovered so long that a great blob of ink collected and splattered onto her previously pristine parchment. She viciously snatched up the paper, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into a corner of the room.

'_Honestly, impossible children these days!'_

* * *

As Professor Snape icily droned on an on about some concoction or other, Draco sighed inwardly, feeling incredibly bored. He brushed the feathery end of his quill against the smooth black tabletop, back and forth, back and forth. After a moment, he chanced a sidelong glance at Ginny, who stared toward the front of the room, seemingly listening intently to Snape's lecture. He suddenly wished skulls were transparent so that he could see the thoughts moving around within her head, but alas, no matter how hard he tried to see, her skull remained obstinately solid and opaque.

Was she thinking about him, he wondered, because he couldn't seem to get her out of his head, which was something foreign and alien to him. Why did he suddenly feel so unfocused, so possessed? Did he feel bad about what had happened? Was that it? Regret? But why? He had never regretted anything before and it seemed ludicrous to suddenly start now. So why?

"MISTER MALFOY," Snape's voice came over him suddenly, loud and sharp.

Draco jumped slightly. "What?"

Snape stared down at his best student. "I asked you, Mister Malfoy, if you remembered how much isonoid loam goes into a Remembrance Potion."

Before he could stop himself, Draco replied indolently, "Hell if I know."

A few Slytherins nearby snickered and Snape glared them into silence.

"Mister Malfoy, are you in your right mind today?" Snape asked, giving Draco one last chance to redeem himself.

"I doubt it," Draco admitted.

Snape studied him stonily for long moments. Then he swept back to the front of the room. "Does anyone else know how much isonoid loam is required for a Remembrance Potion? Yes, Miss Granger?"

A few tables over from where Draco and Ginny sat, Ron leaned toward Harry. "Oi, what's up with Malfoy?" he whispered. "He seems weird today."

Harry glanced over at Hermione; they seemed to have a secret conversation with their eyes and Ron glanced from Hermione to Harry in bewilderment. "What?" he asked. "What is it?"

"Well…" Hermione began, but soon trailed off and looked to Harry for assistance.

"It's just…well, we have reason to believe that…that Draco likes Ginny," Harry explained quietly with some difficulty, keeping his eyes to the front of the room so it would appear to Snape that he was listening.

"WHAT?!" Ron shouted, outraged.

Harry and Hermione winced.

"MISTER WEASLEY. Is there a dire problem for which you felt you had to interrupt my class?"

Ron gulped nervously, flushing a lovely shade of red. "No, it's nothing, sir."

"Good, then you can stop interrupting my class," Snape said icily.

As soon as Snape's back was turned again, Ron leaned in toward Harry and Hermione, whispering furiously. "How do you mean? That can't be true."

Harry and Hermione shared that secret conversation glance again, and it irked Ron a little.

"We don't know for certain, obviously," Hermione explained.

"But it seems that way. How else can you explain his weird behavior? He seemed pretty upset and troubled at breakfast this morning, and now it seems like he can barely concentrate," Harry pointed out.

Hermione and Harry shared that glance again, as if asking each other whether they should say it or not.

"And…we think Ginny might like Draco too," Harry said finally, preparing himself for Ron's outburst.

Ron's mouth fell open. Then he laughed to himself. "You're very funny, you two. As if Ginny could ever like someone like _Malfoy_. You guys are too much."

"I know it's unbelievable to you; it's pretty unbelievable to us too, but we really think it's true. I mean, how else can you explain their argument this morning? Ginny _kissed_ him, Ron. And when Draco shouted at her, she seemed too upset to have only feelings of friendship or toleration for him, let alone hatred," Harry said.

Ron stared at them for a few moments and then he shook his head. "You're wrong; I know it. I'll ask her myself later. You'll see. You're all nutty."

"And if she says that she does?" Hermione asked.

"I'll tell her to stop," Ron replied abruptly.

Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. "No, Ron. As hard as it is for us, we'll have to accept it; you must know that. If we don't, she'll only get upset. Who she likes is her choice and no one else's. If she does like him, she must see something in him that we don't, and we have to trust her judgment."

"B-b-but…" Ron spluttered helplessly. "It's _Malfoy_."

The rest of Draco's classes passed more or less uneventfully, besides the usual mishaps by inept students. Lunch finally came around and still Ginny had not said a word to him. They sat at the Slytherin table across from Blaise again, and he eyed them quizzically. Draco gave him a hard look that clearly told him not to ask, and for once, Blaise listened to his warning. He turned slightly and began to discuss Quidditch with the boy next to him.

Someone cleared their throat and Draco and Ginny turned to find Ron standing rather awkwardly behind them.

"Gin…can I talk to you please?"

Ginny glanced at Draco for a split second and then nodded to Ron and stood, following him out of the Great Hall. Once in the Entrance Hall, Ron turned to face Ginny, looking flustered.

"I know…I haven't ever been very good at this…but please let me try. And…answer honestly, please," he began. "Are you…do you…like Malfoy?"

Ginny's head jerked up sharply in surprise. She laughed a little. "That's silly, Ron. Of course not."

"Ginny, you don't…you don't have to lie to me. I know…we've never talked much. About anything. But…please, I'd like to start. Let me try," Ron said, studying her for long moments.

Finally, she sighed heavily. "Yes, Ron. I think I do," she admitted, but she hurriedly added, "But you don't understand. Sometimes…sometimes he's different. He's different than what I first thought. Sometimes. I know you don't believe me, but he's not as bad as you think he is. Really, I-"

"Gin…" Ron interrupted. "I…I understand. And…I trust your judgment." Ron made a face as if all of that had been physically painful to say.

Ginny ignored the face though and stared at him in shock. "Really? You mean that?" When Ron nodded, she sighed again. "It doesn't matter though. He hates me; he'll always hate me. And sometimes I hate him too."

Ron slung an arm about her shoulder. "Don't give up yet, Gin."

Ginny smiled up at her older brother. "Thanks, Ron. You can't know how much what you've said means to me."

They made their way back into the Great Hall, his arm still over her shoulders. "Anytime you have woes, even love woes, feel free to come to me, Gin; I'm an expert, after all."

Ginny snorted. "Oh really? Is that why you're single still?"

"Oh, young ignorant one, don't you know you can't hurry love?" Ron feigned a serious, scholarly air.

"Thanks again, Ron," Ginny said once more, before returning to the Slytherin table. Harry and Hermione both looked up as he approached the Gryffindor table. He sighed sullenly and laid his head on the table. "I think I'm going to be sick."

His two friends grinned at him. "We're proud of you, Ron," Hermione said, patting his back comfortingly.

McGonagal, who had just been about to re-enter the Great Hall after numerous failed attempts at a psychological journal, stood motionless in the hall. That conversation…that line…

She grinned slowly as she repeated it in her head, _'Don't you know you can't hurry love?'_

Grinning triumphantly, a thousand thoughts running through her head, McGonagal turned on her heel and went back to her rooms.

When Ginny sat back down at the table, Blaise was arguing heatedly with a couple of Slytherins around him about Quidditch.

"I'm telling you, the Bohemia Barons have the cup this year," Blaise was saying.

"No way, the Rondez Rounders have it in the bag!" another Slytherin insisted.

Ginny snorted as she sat back down at the table. "I'll break the bad news to you guys now so you won't be crushed when cup time comes around: they're both going down."

The Slytherin arguing with Blaise looked at her derisively. "Who's going to win then, eh?"

"The Belgian Boxers," Ginny declared firmly.

Blaise and the other Slytherin laughed. "And how'll they manage that miracle?" the Slytherin asked.

"They were last in the league the last two seasons," Blaise reminded her.

"Last year, they only played their starters unless one of them got injured. For the past two years, they've been solely focused on training their former benchwarmers, the younger, up-and-coming players. Remember their star chaser, Simon Siefer? They only put him in the pitch because their starter, Gareth Nodden, suffered a head injury. He was one of those they had been training and all the papers said he was the best chaser in the league but that he was unfortunately on the worst team in the league. They said he would have been a star if he weren't on that team. I'll bet anything the team's putting all of their former benchwarmers in the field this year. They're in for a huge comeback, I guarantee it," Ginny explained matter-of-factly.

Another Slytherin nearby turned to them. "Hey, I heard something about that! I read an article about it. The Seeker's average time is like half an hour, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Seriously?" Blaise asked, incredulously.

"Yes, seriously! I'm telling you - they're going to be unstoppable!" Ginny insisted earnestly.

Blaise took her hand. "Please marry me; I'm in love, I swear!"

Draco scowled, and he was glad no one saw it.

She laughed. "It's just a passing infatuation, I'm sure."

"Then at least say you'll come to the World Cup with us this summer."

Ginny flushed. "I probably can't afford tickets."

"That's okay! My friend's dad gets them really cheap," Blaise insisted. "We can just get a bunch of friends together and make a party of it. And you can tell me which teams to put money on," Blaise said, winking.

"Okay, sounds fun!"

"You should come too, Draco," Blaise said, turning to him. "You like Quidditch too. We can all have a barbeque at my house afterwards."

"Why would I waste my time on that?" Draco drawled sourly.

Blaise rolled his eyes. "You're such a stiff."

Suddenly, a student came running into the hall. "It's snowing; it's snowing!"

"Wow! The first snow of the year!"

"It's snowing early this year!"

"I hope it'll stick!"

"Aww, just when it's time for class to start!"

The last half of the day went as slowly and uneventfully as the first had. During the last class of the day, McGonagal seemed particularly happy and cheerful. Seeing that all of the students were anxious to go outside and weren't concentrating, she dismissed class half an hour early.

Students were racing through the halls to get outside. Draco hung back, walking slowly as he thought. _'Our last day. Tomorrow everything will go back to the way it was before…what should I do?'_

As Ginny walked behind him, staring at the back of his head, she also thought. _'So Draco's mad at me; so what? What am I doing? This isn't me. This is our last day. What do I care what he thinks of me after today?'_

Ginny strode forward next to Draco. "Hey…I…I know you don't…like me right now, but will you come outside with me? I can't go without you, as you know."

"You can go; I'll tell Dumbledore I made you leave and deal with whatever consequences. So, I guess this is the end. Needless to say, it's been torture, Weasley. See you around."

Ginny stood frozen, watching him walk away. In a sudden, uncharacteristic outburst, she called after him. "Wait!" He stopped but didn't turn to look at her. "I…" she began, "but I want you to come with me. I mean…I don't want you to get in trouble because of me. We are…you know…stuck in this together…after all. But if you don't want to, I understand. I mean, we could always just you know…not, and…" Ginny realized she was beginning to babble and trailed off.

Draco was silent for long moments. Finally, he said, "We should get warmer clothes first or we'll freeze," and strode off down the corridor again.

Ginny squealed in delight and hurried to catch up with him, chattering excitedly. After stopping by the Slytherin and Gryffindor dormitories and getting bundled up like Eskimos, Ginny and Draco headed down to the Entrance Hall, Ginny skipping the whole way.

"We could build a snowman and a snow fort and throw snow balls and make snow angels and-"

"Stop, Weasley, before you talk me another ear hole!" he interrupted.

"But-"

"It's just snow. You've seen it before!"

Ginny squinted as the huge front doors opened, sunlight reflecting off the surface of the snow to make the winter scene shine a brilliant, blinding white.

"Hey Gin!" Ginny heard a shout and just as her eyes grew adjusted to the blinding light, she saw a snowball flying toward her. Draco grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. The momentum made her fall into his chest. The snowball hit the wall behind her just above her shoulder. Ginny stepped back, her cheeks flushed, and Draco's face was impassive, staring forward. She glanced at Ron, who had thrown the snowball, and he winked at her.

* * *

McGonagal sighed happily as she sat down at her desk, pulling a piece of parchment toward her. She dipped her quill into a pot of black ink and began to write feverishly. She had it; she knew she did. Her quill didn't so much as pause until the paper was finished. Holding it up in front of her, she grinned at her masterpiece of psychological literature.

_Esteemed colleagues:_

_This theory at first proved to be a daunting one. How could two people who hate each other so much ever grow to love? There are several points to be made concerning this theory from the evidence I have gathered through extensive research and experimentation. When applying or researching this theory in the world, there will always be several confounding variables that will decrease the external validity of any experiment._

_The first confounding variable is the specimens' backgrounds. My subjects' families have an amazingly lengthy history of hatred and rivalry. This long history can never be completely reversed by so simple an experiment._

_Another variable to consider is the immediate environment. My subjects are currently in school where they are constantly under the scrutiny of the other students. They are in opposing houses at school, and they know their classmates and friends would not approve. Such pressures cannot be so easily overcome._

_With variables such as these, it is difficult for my subjects to overcome them but they are steadily moving toward tolerance, at least. At first they hated each other fully and completely. Throughout the experiment, they grew to tolerate each other. They cannot be expected to love each other with such a background of hatred and rivalry and hostility to overcome. My point, colleagues, is that you can't hurry love. I have no doubt that if these environmental variables did not exist, my subjects would not be so reluctant to embrace their emotions._

_In short, I'd like to add certain specifications to this theory. The line between the deepest hate and the deepest love is thinnest and easiest to cross with the least amount of external validity and the highest level of internal validity. With these validities, though, the experiment is not appropriately applicable to the actual world. Increase the external validity and that line will be more difficult to cross, though it is by all means still possible._

_I am certain that if I were given more time, my subjects would cross that line. As is, my subjects seem to be experiencing great attraction and affection for each other, but they will not openly declare these feeling due to the confounding variables – that is, the pressure they feel from classmates, friends, and family._

_I will not, however, request the deadline to be extended, and I will not continue to apply my efforts to this experiment any longer. I will not cross any ethical boundaries, even for the purpose of psychological advancements._

_Thank you for your time, attention, and consideration._

_Minerva McGonagal_

* * *

"Hey Gin, we're going to head inside. We've been out here almost all afternoon now," Ron said, laughing as he brushed snow off of his jacket.

"Want to come?" Harry asked her.

"No thanks. I want to stay out here a little longer. I'll see you guys later!" Ginny replied.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron headed into the castle, Harry and Ron laughing and pushing each other.

Ginny packed snow together in her hands and grinned to herself, seeing Draco on a low-hanging tree branch near the lake. She tossed it and hit Draco square on the back with a satisfying "thish!"

He turned and glared. She grinned at him.

"Think that's funny, do you?" he demanded.

Ginny pretended to consider his question for a moment and then giggled. "Yes, don't you?" she asked, sitting beside him on the branch.

Draco also pretended to consider her question and then lunged at her, pushing her back off the tree branch. They landed in the fluffy white snow below them, sending up small flurries of fresh powder as they hit the ground.

"You think that's funny, do you?" Ginny laughed.

Draco smirked. "Yes, don't you?" He glanced down at her, glancing at her flushed cheeks and finally focusing on her full, pink lips.

"This is…our last day. After tomorrow morning..." Ginny said slowly.

Draco moved off her and sat up beside her in the snow. He nodded silently. They were quiet for long moments. "It hasn't…been as…miserable as I thought it would be," he finally said hesitantly.

Ginny glanced up at him in pleasant surprise, but he stared ahead resolutely. "Do you…mean that?"

He nodded and Ginny grinned happily. "I agree. It hasn't been so bad. Are we…friends?"

"I don't have friends."

"That's ridiculous. I'm your friend," Ginny insisted.

Draco looked over at her then, and she saw something there she hadn't ever seen before. Ginny watched as if frozen still as he leaned forward and placed a hand behind her head in her hair, pulling her forward slightly to meet his lips.

Maybe it's the wait, the anticipation; maybe it's the passion, the tenderness, the emotion behind it; maybe it's the knowledge that this is a moment you'll never forget or the knowledge that there will never be another moment quite like it; but they say that when you get that one perfect kiss of a lifetime, the world freezes. Everything freezes, and the world is silent and still. Everything is waiting and watching this single, perfect moment.

All of Ginny's attention was focused upon Draco's lips on hers, moving slow and sweet. He gripped her hair and pulled her closer, his free hand moving down her back. When she placed a tentative hand on his chest, she thought she felt him shiver and her heart gave a strange sort of flutter.

He pulled away then as students came out of the castle, chattering excitedly. They stared at each other for long moments in shock – in momentary, shocking bliss.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ohhh, what's gonna happen now?! I should have the final chapter up shortly! I've already started to type it out, so hopefully you won't have to wait too long ;) As always, REVIEW please!


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